No one knew her name, indeed no one had even heard of her before this. She stood among the rest, inconspicuous and yet outstanding at the same time.
She was comparatively small, and her young face had none of the competitiveness and ferocity of the faces around her. She didn’t have the fancy tank tops the others had. No nail polish, definitely no sunnies. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail. She wore a plain white baby-T. She looked like a schoolgirl.
No one knew how she came to be there. She doubted anyone really cared. They were all too busy looking at the others. But when she heard the gun, she did what she came to do – she ran.
Arms pumping as hard as she could, it didn’t matter that all eyes were on those ahead. It didn’t matter that she was falling behind, that she would be lucky to finish second-last. She just ran, earnestly, calmly, almost innocently.
While others grimaced, veins straining from the effort, she had a faint smile on her face. Because she knew that she could never hope to outrun them, and because she knew that she had already won.
She was Robina, 18 years old, one of only two women representing Afghanistan at the Olympic Games for the first time, and she finished her race in a national record time of 14.14.
