Monday, January 30, 2006

Women marathoners - in Pakistan

Here's a real success story for the international running community as well as for enlightened thought in the Muslim world - women participating in a marathon (plus a separate 10K and 5K) in Lahore, Pakistan yesterday, in part to raise money for earthquake victims. This despite violent protests against their participation in which more than 400 people were arrested.

Results aren't yet posted on the race website. The site included a history of marathoning there which talks about Roberta Gibb running the Boston Marathon for the first time in 1966. Finally, after 40 years, those freedoms have reached Pakistani women, too.

2 comments:

Downhillnut said...

Wow. Even though I realize Roberta Gibb made a big political point by running Boston, I still had not thought about how powerful a statement could be made by muslim women in the same way.

I applaud the brave people who ran, walked, cheered, supported and reported this event!

Chris said...

Wow. That kind of puts a whole new perspective on things. Sometimes we forget just how good we have it in this country. I certainly don't think anyone thinks twice about being persecuted for participating in a run.

Thanks for sharing.