TucsonCitizen.com Article: Despite the danger, Iraqi sprinter keeps running

By: Mike Lopresti

BEIJING — Back home in Iraq, where the athletes have died like everyone else, there are two running tracks Dana Abdul-Razak can use to make herself a sprinter. One requires ignoring the scars from the mortar shells. The other is two hours away.

This is the route a woman must take, dashing through a war to get to the Olympics.

Her official Olympic bio mentions that her coach and fiance sometimes have had to cut deals with Shiite militiamen and Sunni insurgents to get her to practice. Money for safety, in a place where life can be cheap.

It is a last resort to be able to run, and even then, sniper shells still occasionally whizzed by.

The Iraqi Olympic team coach was asked Monday if that is true. Mohammad Al-Hagami shrugged, admitted maybe there had been days like that. Just as there have been days, as he pointed maybe 20 yards away, "where bombs are there and we are here. We are not afraid from that."

What they do is pause a moment, and then get back to the speed work. Later, they might go shopping.

"This," he said, "is our life."

Scrape away the corporate sponsors and television rights, and the Olympics are still supposed to be about hope.

Here, for example, comes the team from Iraq.

The president of the Olympic Committee is a Kurd.

The chef de mission is Christian.

The woman in the 100-meter dash is Sunni.

The coach is Shiite.

That doesn't sound like an Olympic team. That sounds like a firefight on a Baghdad street. It's a small world, after all.

"Is he? I didn't know that," Tiras Anwaya said, of his coach being Shiite. "It means nothing to me."

So the Olympic team of Iraq stands for something, even if it was banned from these Games until 10 days before the Opening Ceremony because of a dispute with the IOC over Iraqi government interference.

Suits in high offices worked it out. Good thing. Is any nation more in need of an Olympic ideal transfusion?

"It was a full heart to be feeling," Al-Hagami said. "Sometimes, you are tearing when the flag goes up."

The New York Times reported nearly 100 athletes, coaches and sport officials have been killed in Iraq since the Athens Olympics of 2004. According to numerous reports, the head of the National Olympic Committee has been missing since 2006, and the deputy was killed in a bus station.

Two years ago, according to the Associated Press, two tennis players and a coach were gunned down, apparently for wearing shorts, after being warned in a pamphlet by Islamic extremists.
From this killing ground, Abdul-Razak has come to the Olympics. A picture online shows her working out. In long pants.

"She is very courageous," Anwaya said. "She is a symbol."

The symbol Monday was wearing jeans, eight earrings, two necklaces and had a cell phone handy. She had little enthusiasm to be quoted because, according to a website called Islamonline.net, she has been threatened after past publicity.

No, she had nothing to say about what part the United States has played in her fate. "We do not need to talk about politics," she said through a translator.

Yes, she was unnerved initially when the bombs exploded near her. "The first time I was afraid, maybe 10 minutes, maybe 20 minutes. It was gone. No big deal."

Chances are, she will not last past the first round of the 100 meters. But why talk track odds to a woman who has dodged sniper fire? Her race is a plea. Someday, this all has to end.

"She feels good for our people to watch her. Not Shiite, not Sunni. Our people," Al-Hagami said.

"And if she is good, for other people and other nations to make their eyes on our flag."

There must be fear, too. What does it a say, that a 22-year-old Olympic sprinter must worry that she is not faster than a speeding bullet?

She mentioned as much to Islamonline.net. "Now this dream could end any time, if for one second I lose my concentration and a bullet comes across my body fired by groups that don't really understand the importance of this."

Iraq, with only a handful of athletes here, wants a stronger Olympic team. "First of all," Anwaya said, "you need peace."

Which is why Abdul-Razak is different than many who will line up next to her Saturday.

Their triumph will be to finish a race. Hers is to start.