Samira Asghari

Samira Asghari is an Afghan basketball player and sports administrator, born on 31 March 1994 in the Jalrez District of Afghanistan. ^{1 2} In 2018 she became the first Afghan member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and one of the youngest members in its history. ¹

Shortly after Asghari's birth, her family became war refugees and moved to Iran, where she grew up playing football and basketball at school. ¹ She later studied international relations at Kateb University in Kabul. ¹

Asghari played for the Afghanistan women's national basketball team and was named its captain. ¹ Working for the Afghanistan National Olympic Committee during the 2010s, she held one-year posts as finance director and as Deputy Secretary General, after earlier work in women's sports and international relations. ¹ In 2018 she was elected to the IOC at the age of 24 — the first representative from Afghanistan and one of the youngest members ever. ¹ In 2019 the Afghanistan Sports Journalists Federation named her Sports Personality of the Year. ¹ After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, when she was living in Europe, she called on the United States to help evacuate Afghan female athletes. ¹

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