When you go to Olympic Games, it's the biggest sporting stage in the world.

Yo, like, I want to do this. How do I get there? What do I need to do?

What does it take to place on the podium at the Olympic and Paralympic Games?

I'm just a competitive person. I'm just built for sport, naturally.

Just a girl that jumps in theampids around the world.

Join the athletes who have achieved it as they share their unique personal journeys.

We're going to do this. I figured out a way to teach you how to swim. Three years later, I swim in Tokyo.

So I remember I was running well, and then six months later I made the Olympic Games when I was 16.

I understood how to take the energy of the crowd when I compete.

Because I was an amateur,

I had to figure out how I can train next to my job. On the podium from the BBC World Service.

We give a high five and we hug each other and start crying and being crazy.

Search for On the Podium, wherever you found this podcast.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me,

Stephen Saker. My guest today has a life story which mirrors the prolonged instability,

broken dreams and missed opportunities of his homeland, Afghanistan. Amrullah Saleh was born in the Panshir Valley in the north.

He grew up knowing nothing but warfare, occupation and insecurity. The Soviets came and went,

and then in the 1990s the Taliban imposed their hardline Islamist rule. Salé joined the Northern Alliance resistance led by Ahmed Shah Masoud,

and has been a sworn enemy of the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan ever since.

After the US-led military intervention toppled the Taliban more than two decades ago,

Salah became a prominent member of the new ruling elite,

an intelligence chief and latterly first vice president serving under Ashraf Ghani.

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