When Nigara Shaheen was six months old, her parents fled Afghanistan, carrying her in her mother’s arms. Last week, she stepped onto the judo mat in Paris for her second Olympics.
It’s the culmination of a journey that has taken her from country to country, and eventually to Canada, looking for a place to live, study and train.
Shaheen, who has lived in Toronto since 2022, said making it to Paris as part of the Olympic Refugee Team was a “dream come true.”
“It’s really joyful and I’m really excited to be part of this team for a second time, but at the same time it’s also a big responsibility,” she said.
“I feel like we can spread the message that we want to spread through our team and through the different platforms we get as athletes.”
Shaheen started in martial arts as a way of defending herself against the harassment she faced as a refugee girl growing up in Pakistan. Because she wasn’t eligible for regular schools that had extracurriculars, her mother convinced a local teacher to give her a first martial arts class on a family member’s small balcony in Peshawar.
Facing harassment for competing in combat sport
She moved back to Afghanistan at 18 in order to study, then to Russia, where she was studying when she was invited to the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Afterwards, she wanted to return to Afghanistan, but the political situation had deteriorated, resulting in her returning to Pakistan, where she became “a refugee for the second time.”
Day 67:08From Afghanistan to Paris: An athlete’s journey to the Olympic Refugee Team
“First you must fall, then you can rise.” Judo athlete Nigara Shaheen shares some of the tremendous obstacles she’s overcome in order to make it to the Paris Olympics.
All along, she said she faced pressure from society to give up her sport, and both she and her family have sometimes faced harassment for her choice to participate in combat sports as a woman.
“In my country, they don’t respect sport as a career,” she said.
She moved to Canada in 2022, where she completed postgraduate studies in international development at Toronto’s Centennial College. She has also obtained permanent residency.
‘You need to learn how to fall’
Shaheen’s Olympic story in Paris did not go perfectly.
She lost to Mexico’s Prisca Awiti Alcaraz in the judo round of 32 contest, and the refugee team also lost in the mixed team elimination round of 32 by a 4-0 margin against Spain. Shaheen had also moved down a weight class, going from the 70-kilogram category in Tokyo to the 63-kilogram in Paris.
She said that while she felt physically better prepared than ever, she still has work to do on controlling her emotions on the mat.
“I just want to go grab the person and win the match, which doesn’t always work the same way and it’s a lot of risk,” she said. “I think I need to work on that, to calm down a little bit and take more time on the mat so that I can work my way.”
While moving to Canada has given Shaheen opportunities, it also required her to make the painful choice of leaving her parents for a second time.
Shaheen said sport has been the one constant in her life, getting her through her darkest days.
“When I get too stressed, I like to train judo,” she said. She runs through the tasks as fast as she can, “so that I can forget whatever is happening in my life.”
She hopes to one day write a book about the sport’s philosophy and believes judo has lessons that can translate to everyday life.
“The first thing is, you need to learn how to fall,” she said. “That’s how life is.”
There’s also the balance, she said. “You need to balance everything in order to get to somewhere.”