More than a year after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, Afghanistan’s female flag-bearer from the past two Olympic Games is rebuilding her life in Australia.

In July 2021, Kimiya Yousofi ran a personal best of 13.29 seconds in the women’s 100 metres heats at the Tokyo Olympic Games and two weeks earlier she had carried the national flag of Afghanistan into the opening ceremony.

But two weeks later her homeland was engulfed in chaos and violence as the Taliban took control and women athletes were forced to flee, fearing for their lives.

After months of lobbying from the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), Ms Yousofi, her mother and one of her three brothers are in Australia to start a new chapter of their lives.

Ms Yousofi was not among the more than 100 female athletes and their families who came to Australia shortly after the Taliban came to power.

She and her parents had already fled Taliban in 1996 when the Taliban first came to power. Her status at the time put her in a sporting no-man’s land and in danger of being forgotten about.

Living in exile in Iran, Ms Yousofi was identified by Afghanistan’s government as part of a talent search looking for female athletes ahead of the Rio Olympics in 2016.

Ms Yousofi had little access to competition and facilities in Iran because of restrictions placed on Afghan refugees, but she was good enough to gain selection for the Olympic team, becoming Afghanistan’s flag-bearer at Rio 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.

“Though my country still has many issues, I will prove to the world that we are striving,” she told Afghan media at the time.

When the Taliban returned to govern Afghanistan last year, women athletes like the women judges, doctors and school teachers had to give up the human rights gains they had made over the previous two decades.

While Afghanistan’s national women’s football team settled in Victoria, with other families from other sports sprinkled around Australia, Ms Yousofi was in a dangerous position in Iran.

In late August a cousin in the US made contact with the then-president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, asking for assistance in obtaining a humanitarian visa. It was a logical step, Yousofi is an Olympian, and Australia has an embassy in Iran, while the US does not.

Security expert Neil Fergus, who had worked to get dozens of others to safety weeks earlier, had heard reports of Afghan refugees being robbed and murdered after crossing into Iran, so he alerted the AOC to Ms Yousofi’s predicament.

She has aspirations of continuing her athletic career and exploring every opportunity to compete at a third Olympic Games in Paris 2024.

“Tokyo was one of the greatest moments of my life. I was so happy to be there to represent my country and I’m going to keep trying,” she told the ABC.

“I’m going to be training very, very hard … I am very excited about going to the next Olympic Games in Paris, so I’m definitely going to keep competing.”

Ms Yousofi is uncertain whether there will be an official Afghanistan Olympic team in Paris or whether she might gain selection in the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Refugee Team.

The AOC is looking at how best to support Ms Yousofi’s ambitions.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Olympic officials have been included in more than 300 members of the Olympic family that have been issued with humanitarian visas to leave the country.

An emergency aid package of up to $US560,000 has also been made available to around 2000 athletes, coaches and officials inside Afghanistan for basic needs in guaranteeing they can continue to train and prepare for competition, although whether this is actually happening for female athletes inside Afghanistan is unknown.

Disbursement of the IOC’s funds is coordinated through the UNHCR’s regional office.

Members of Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee, some of whom are now in exile in Switzerland, have said they are committed to fielding a team of men and women at the 2024 Paris Games. The Taliban government is unlikely to support this.

But for Kimiya Yousofi, representing the country of her birth twice at the Olympics while living in Iran, has given her the determination to do so again.

She hopes she will represent her country again, this time from her new home in Australia.