Saudi Arabia allows women athletes to compete in London Games, but its likely representative won't come after horse injury
Dalma Rushdi Malhas on Flash Top Hat at the Youth Olympic Games in 2010. Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images
The 20-year-old showjumper who has been touted to become Saudi Arabia's first female competitor in the Olympic Games, will not be coming to London after all.
Under pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which insists that every country should field female athletes, the Saudi government announced on Sunday its willingness to let women athletes compete.
Dalma Rushdi Malhas, who won bronze in the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, was seen as the country's most likely representative. But her mother, Arwa Mutabagani, told the Guardian she would not be able to compete because her horse, Caramell KS, was injured.
"Unfortunately her horse got injured, and there is no chance of her getting to the Olympics this time," said Mutabagani, herself a former showjumper. "You have to have the combination. It would be like a Formula One driver going to the track without their car." Caramell was bought from Sweden for a substantial sum at the end of last year to help Malhas's Olympic bid, but an injury to its back was diagnosed six weeks ago and it will not have recovered in time for the Games.
It would, in any case, have been premature for the IOC to pitch Malhas into Olympic competition. As the Youth Olympic Games, in which she won her bronze, was a relatively underpowered event, she had not reached the qualifying standard, so the IOC would have had to give her a wildcard. Such a manoeuvre, convenient though it would have been in ending the standoff between the Saudi authorities and the IOC, would have proved controversial, with other countries asking why Saudi competitors should receive special treatment.
The equestrian world governing body, the FEI, confirmed that Malhas would not be competing. "However, we understand that the IOC has a number of other female athletes from Saudi Arabia in other sports who are currently under consideration," said its secretary general Ingmar De Vos.
While ruling out her daughter's participation in London, Mutabagani – a key figure in the development of equestrianism in Saudi Arabia and the first female member of the country's Olympic committee – welcomed the Saudi decision to allow women to compete. "It gives an opportunity to women in the country who love sport," she said.
Mutabagani was not allowed to compete alongside men in domestic competition, so had to go abroad where she was registered as a Saudi rider, but never able to compete as part of an official team.
To further her daughter's career, she has spent much of the past decade in Italy, where her daughter trained, and now runs an equestrian centre in the French town of Chantilly.
She describes her daughter as "a talented rider and a fast learner" and says she hopes she will compete at a future Olympics. The Saudis are putting huge efforts into developing showjumping; the men's team is expected to perform well in London But their women – and Malhas is not the only female rider with potential – may have to wait until Rio in 2016 to clear this historic fence.
