The National Olympic Committee on Tuesday honored 50 athletes who have brought home medals from international events in the past few months. 

The head of the committee, Zahir Aghbar, said: “I am excited that I see many of my brothers coming here from Pul-e-Charkhi (area in the east of Kabul). I hope that Hajir Noor Rahman (a senior official of the committee) holds a ceremony and we honor athletes there.” 

“We will continue our efforts to provide the ground for athletes from the Kochi tribe so that they can hoist Afghanistan’s flag at foreign competitions,” said Noor Rahman Tarakhail, provincial deputy head of the committee for Kabul.

“We have been given a duty and we will try to carry it out seriously,” said Hedayatullah Kamawal, an advisor for the committee.

The medal winners meanwhile welcomed the move and called for further attention to be given to sport.

“There were 286 of us sportsmen and 186 of us were able to attend competitions. Twelve of us got medals,” said Hayatullah Khairi, a medal winner.

“We want budget from government for upcoming competitions in order to get good results,” said Zahra Husaini, another medal winner.

This comes after Afghan athletes brought home 12 medals from the Asian Martial Arts and Indoor Championships in Turkmenistan where 66 countries participated.

Other athletes, Ahmad Yasin Salik Qaderi, got gold medals at two other international events.