Background
Jalali was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and is one of nine children (seven girls and two boys).
Jalali was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and is one of nine children (seven girls and two boys).
She attended school after 2001.
She competed athletically under the name Muqimyar and ran for a seat in the lower house of Afghanistan"s parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, using her family name of Jalali. and because she was one of the first two women ever to represent Afghanistan at the Olympic Games, by competing along with judoka Friba Razayee at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Her father was a businessman in the computer industry who now runs a non-profit company that teaches Afghan women how to sew. Jalali was home schooled during the era of the Taliban when schooling for girls was forbidden.
Describing life under the Taliban, she has said: "There was nothing for us girls to do under the Taliban.
You couldn"t go to school. You couldn"t play, you couldn"t do anything.
You were just at home all the time."
Muqimyar took part in the women"s 100m sprint. She finished seventh out of eight in her heat, with a time of 14.14 seconds, 0.15 seconds ahead of Somalia"s Fartun Abukar Omar.
Muqimyar was 17 at the time of the event.
She ran in "a T-shirt and long green track pants" rather than more aerodynamic competition clothing. She was not initially due to compete in the in Beijing, but joined Afghanistan"s delegation after female sprinter Mehboba Ahdyar left her training camp in June to seek political asylum in Norway. At the 2008 Summer Olympics she took part at the 100 metres sprint.
In her first round heat she placed eighth and last in a time of 14.80 which was not enough to advance to the second round.
The Guardian described her as a true embodiment of the Olympic spirit:
"The Olympic rings are the most recognised symbol on the planet and every corporate player wants to turn the Games into an advert for soft drinks and cr cards. Yet despite the drug scandals and excess there are still athletes who embody the Olympic spirit.
So meet the Afghan sprinter who had to hide from the Taliban, the Brazilian gymnast from the ghetto and the Ecuadorean walker who made a 459km pilgrimage after his first gold medal. She ran for office as an independent, on a platform of equal rights for women and youth, in the September 2010 parliamentary election.