For someone who had to disguise herself as a man, dodge thrown stones and eventually flee her homeland to pursue cycling, Fariba Hashimi's seventh-place finish in the women's individual time trial at the Asian Games carried profound personal meaning for the 23-year-old Afghan.
Hashimi, who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and is now settled in Italy, hopes her journey serves as an inspiration back home even as UNESCO estimates that 2.4 million Afghan girls have been excluded from secondary education since the change of guard.
