Nur Al Huda Sarmad, an Iraqi table tennis player who hopes to lead her team to the Paralympics, braves the intense heat, societal stigma, and subpar facilities by adjusting her wheelchair before hitting the ball into play.
At a community center in the southern city of Diwaniyah, Sarmad and seven other Iraqi women with disabilities practice three times a week in anticipation of a competition that might earn them spots on the country’s Paralympic squad. However, the facilities fall well short of Olympic standards.
The tennis tables are broken, there are power outages, and we even have to buy our own paddles,” Sarmad, 25, explained. With no specialized training facilities, the team frequently had to share the three used tables in the public community center with visitors.
They cannot turn on the fans during the hot Iraqi summer because it would impair the movement of the balls. The air conditioner, which may bring some respite, remains off-limits in a country dealing with persistent power disruptions, especially in July when temperatures reach 50˚C. The community center is powered by a generator, but it can only provide necessities.
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