BEIJING – One of the many things that makes the Olympics great is that at some point in the Games you are guaranteed to see something you’ve never seen before.
I’m not talking about watching a man run faster than anyone in the history of the world, even after slowing to a jog and beating his chest a few strides from the finish. Or a guy from Baltimore winning eight gold medals in swimming.
I’m talking about the strange and wonderful things you’ve never even thought about, the stuff you need an NBC analyst to explain to you. Like the difference between a gold medal performance and a last-place routine on the pommel horse. Or how exactly one accumulates points in a synchronized swimming contest.
For me, it was a sprinter from Bahrain and her Sports Burka.
Prior to Heat 4 of the women’s 200 meters in Beijing, I had never pondered the question of how a woman from a strict Muslim society might dress if she were to compete in a foot race.
But on August 19, as I watched from a lower-level seat in the Bird’s Nest, Rogaya Al-Gassra provided an answer. As her competitors removed their track suits to reveal spandex shorts and form-fitting tops that were often little more than sports bras, the runner from Bahrain stepped into the blocks in what could only be described as a Sports Burka.
It was a two-tone spandex suit, complete with a hood that resembled a swimmer’s bathing cap. The Sports Burka was as form-fitting as her competitors’ athletic apparel, and thus equally aerodynamic, but it cleverly met her religious requirement for modesty.
Islamic purists might cringe at the idea of a woman sporting a form-fitting spandex suit, but the Sports Burka covered every inch of Al-Gassra’s body aside from her hands and face. The suit did not cover the sprinter’s nose and mouth, as a traditional burka would, but this concession seems rather necessary to allow the runner to breathe as she attempts to out-run the fastest women in the world.
And that is just what Al-Gassra did, winning her heat in 22.81 seconds to advance to the second round of competition that evening.
