Let Olympian Sara Samir sit for exams: Sara Samir (referred to in the international press as Sara Ahmed) who at 18 years of age made history as the first Egyptian woman to win an Olympic medal said she was denied a request to defer her high school exams to train for Rio. Samir made the remarks in a call-in to Ahmed Shoubair’s show after her win (Arabic, 5:42). She went on to state that she was informed by the Ministry of Education that as a result, she would receive failing marks in all her classes. The Ministry of Education denied she had ever made such a request, AMAY reported on Thursday, which is probably the wrong thing to say in this situation.

… It would appear, however, that the Ministry may slowly be arriving at the realization that the typical response is not going to fly at all. On Saturday, the Ministry’s department of Legal Affairs indicated that Sara may be granted the chance to sit for her exams upon returning from Rio. We believe public pressure in this case is appropriate and necessary to make sure her case does not fall into a bureaucratic black hole once everyone forgets about Rio and the pride that Sara Samir and all our athletes who embraced the spirit and sportsmanship of the Olympics brought to Egypt.

(And as an aside, we do note that Egyptian weightlifter Abeer Abdelrahman was retroactively awarded a silver medal at the 2012 London games after her Russian rival was disqualified for doping.)