Mahbooba Ahadgar, who was the only Afghan female scheduled to be competing in the Beijing Olympic Games next month, has resurfaced after going missing in Italy last week and is en route to Norway, where she will be seeking asylum.

When Ahadgar could not be found at her training camp in Formia on Thursday, there were fears that her disappearance may have been linked to a series of death threats that she had received at home from Muslim extremists, who are opposed to the concept of a woman running in the Olympics.

However, concerns for her family's safety are not over because, since Ahadgar's mysterious disappearance, her parents have been under so much pressure from the Afghan Olympic Committee in Kabul to get their daughter back into her spikes that they have been threatened with imprisonment. Her parents, though, were also in the dark as to her whereabouts until she phoned them on Tuesday.

While her safety is a relief within Olympic circles, her decision to go into hiding a month before the Games is a galling blow because, as an Afghan woman who is proud of her athleticism and her Muslim religion, she became a poster girl for the Games. Ahadgar had been on a scholarship from the Olympic Solidarity programme, which financed training camps in Kuala Lumpur and Italy, even though her running times in her event, the 1,500 metres, meant that she would struggle to finish within a minute of the winners.

Ahadgar is not the first Olympic Solidarity scholar to seek asylum in this way. Two Bangladeshi athletes also vanished last year and a runner from Gabon did the same in 2001.

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