Although the London Olympics marks the first time Saudi Arabia has sent women to compete, many observers say the supposed breakthrough means very little.
Two women will join the originally all-male Saudi Olympic team in London: Wojdan Shahrkhani in judo and Sarah Attar in track and field. Both women were born and raised in the United States and were trained outside of the kingdom, which does not allow female athletes.
The number of Saudi women competing might also soon drop to one, after the President of the International Judo Federation announced Thursday that headscarves were banned from judo competition, citing safety reasons. Both women were approved by Saudi authorities on the condition that they would wear conservative Muslim dress.
Attar runs track in California and Shahrkhani learned judo from her dad in Saudi Arabia and has never competed.
The two women didn’t qualify for the games either, because Saudi doesn’t hold a national competition for women. Instead, it was the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that invited the two women, under the Olympic charter, which bans gender discrimination. IOC President Jacques Rogge has expressed his delight at the news and called it “an encouraging evolution,” according to a press release.
Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi researcher at Human Rights Watch, was more skeptical.
“The issue is gender discrimination not who has two minutes of fame in London.”
He doesn’t believe the move represents any genuine change.
“It seems to me a step by the kingdom authorities to diffuse the quite considerable media attention and Olympic committee pressure on them to include women in sports.”
A women’s Ramadan sports tournament featuring basketball, volleyball, and soccer was prohibited by an official in the Saudi sports ministry on July 5, despite the organizers’ assurances that the event would comply with Islamic law. The holy month of Ramadan this year runs July 20 to Aug. 18.
It wasn’t an easy job for Saudi leaders to find women fit to compete, since Saudi women aren’t allowed to play or compete in sports in the nation, or even have gym class, according to Wilcke.
“Saudi Arabia has completely and utterly failed to make the slightest move to allow women to play sports in the kingdom.” Wilcke continued, “We do not think that at this point they should be allowed to compete at the Olympics.”
Isobel Coleman, senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, said that allowing two women to compete at the Olympics wouldn’t help Saudi women much in the short run.
“However, over time, this could be the first step in a long process toward greater acceptance of female athletics in the kingdom.”
Shahrkhani will be competing in women’s +78kg judo, fighting against Puerto Rico’s Mojica Melissa on Aug. 3. Attar will run the 800-meter race on Aug. 8.
Two other countries, Brunei and Qatar, share the reputation with Saudi Arabia for not allowing women near sports in past Olympics.
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