A Long Road to Athens.(Brief Article)

Like many other Afghans, former basketball star Maliha Baraki faces a long road back to the competitive world. The Taliban did not spare sports when they attempted to turn Afghanistan back into an eighth- century medieval fiefdom. They suspended most athletics and prohibited women from competing. But the country's recent liberation has offered a chance to resurrect sports--including its dormant Olympic program. Some even harbor hopes of fielding a team at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens. And this time, women like Baraki--who played guard on Afghanistan's national team in the 1980s--will not be left out. "It's fitting," she says, "because when women like me were playing, we were doing it to get a taste of freedom."

Getting a taste of Olympic glory will prove more daunting. When she was chosen in 1982 at 15, Baraki was one of the youngest women ever to play on the national team. Now she is a 35-year-old mother of three, and has picked up a basketball three times in the past 10 years--including during a recent shoot-around with a NEWSWEEK correspondent. (She had to remove her burqa first.) Baraki is 20 pounds heavier than during her playing days and has lower-back problems. But any worries that she might be past her prime vanished last month when her old coach called asking her to return. "I'm going to test my strength to see if I still have it," Baraki says. "I just hope to get another shot."

The same goes for Afghanistan's entire sports program. No Afghan athlete has competed internationally since the 1996 Atlanta Games, shortly before the Taliban seized power. And Afghan women have been absent since the mujahedin banned them from playing sports in 1992. Baraki, who had been playing basketball almost daily since she was 7, was devastated. "I was very nervous all the time because I feel that sports are the best thing a human can do," she says. Life got even worse four years later when the Taliban banned her from her job as a teacher, boarded up gymnasiums and closed soccer fields.

Today, Afghanistan's Olympic Committee has no training facilities other than a dilapidated sports stadium--which, until last November, was used for executing alleged criminals. Training for sports such as basketball and wrestling cannot begin until spring, since those athletes must practice outside. But Olympic Committee director Said Mahmod Zia Dashti remains undeterred. "This is a new era, and there will be athletics for women," he says. "We're going to prepare ...