In advance of the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, we speak to women who have faced conflict, discrimination and a lack of funding to stand as their countries’ only female qualifiers in their chosen fields

One of Alexandra Ndolo’s greatest career achievements so far is winning a silver medal for Germany at the world fencing championships in Cairo in 2022. But when the daughter of a Polish mother and Kenyan father looked up and saw the Kenyan flag hanging from the roof of the arena for the one athlete who hadn’t won anything, she had a moment of reckoning.