2 Saudi women walk different paths to Olympics

— The two women who will become the first female athletes to compete for Saudi Arabia at the Olympics have walked very different paths that will meet at the London Games.

One is a distance runner raised in California who has spent little time in Saudi Arabia but hopes to become a "big inspiration" for women in the kingdom, which severely restricts women in public life and effectively bans them from sports.

The other practices judo, but she has hardly ever left Saudi Arabia and has never competed.

While Sarah Attar was running cross-country for her high school in the United States, Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani was watching judo on television and listening to her brothers talk about it.

Then one day she told her father, a judo coach and an international referee in the sport, that she wanted to train.

"She said, 'I want to be like you, I want to become very good,'" the father, Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani, told The Associated Press in an interview. "I said, OK, you want to train? I will coach you at home."

Saudi Arabia is allowing them to compete after the International Olympic Committee and human-rights groups put intense pressure on the kingdom to end its practice of sending all-male teams to the Olympics.

After Qatar and Brunei announced they would send women, Saudi Arabia would have been the only country with no women on the team. Instead, the London Games will be the first in Olympic history in which women are represented in every national delegation.


Attar and Shahrkhani were entered earlier this month by the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee. Neither technically qualified, but they received special invitations from the IOC "based on the quality of the athletes," IOC chief Jacques Rogge said.

Attar, 19, is an art student who holds dual American and Saudi citizenship. Sports was part of her life growing up in Escondido, Calif., but she has not raced competitively since entering Pepperdine University earlier this year.

On her own, she has run the 1,500 meters in 5:30.51 and the 3,000 meters in 11:37.41. At the London Games, she will compete in the women's 800 meters. Heats are Aug. 8, and the final is Aug. 11.

Attar has not been subjected to the restrictions that apply to women in Saudi Arabia. In a photo on the website of her high school team, she appears in shorts and a sleeveless top.

In the kingdom, women can be punished by the religious police for showing their hair in public. They could be imprisoned under Islamic law if they dared slip out of the house in sweatpants and a shirt for a morning jog.

After her inclusion on the Saudi Olympic team, Attar made a statement to the IOC wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers, and covered her hair. But she did not ignore the deep cultural differences between the two countries.


