Nigara Shaheen: From fleeing war to Paris Olympics

PARIS – 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, 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’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.”

Shaheen’s journey to the Olympics has not been a simple one. She 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