But Faizah had other things to look forward to in 2016. My baby sister was getting married! She had met a kind Egyptian-American man, and the two of them had followed traditional Islamic marriage laws and were going to have their wedding celebration in March. I was so happy that Faizah had found love, and watching her navigate international fencing competitions, college, and now marriage filled me with pride and hope. Hope that one day I too would be able to find that life balance, and pride that my little sister was charting her own successful life path. Faizah truly inspired me.
The next day, the team doctor gave me some medication that would allow me to at least keep water down and stop my head from pounding. I knew only a miracle would get me through a full day of competition. Less than twenty-four hours before, I had been sleeping on the bathroom floor, so I didn’t have the highest of expectations, but it was moments like these that I had trained for. I had to be ready.
When I walked into the arena in Athens, the sense of anticipation was palpable. Everyone there had their hopes set on fencing well enough to secure their spot at the Olympics for their respective countries. I was happy that in addition to my mom and sister, Akhi had also made it to this competition and was able to provide me with the support I needed on the strip. I knew I needed to warm up, but my body was too fatigued to make it through my normal routine. I didn’t know how I would fare that day, but I prayed my body could function on autopilot. It was possible considering I had competed in dozens of World Cups. Despite my weakened state, I was prepared for battle, repeating my mantra: You are strong. You are ready. You are a champion. Because even though I was sick, I still wanted to win.
I had high energy in my first match, like I knew I had to get a jump on my opponent in order to stay in contention to win. I didn’t have the easiest bracket, but I made it work. I beat some tough fencers, including 2008 Olympic gold medalist Olga Zhovnir from Ukraine and Yaqi Shao from China. I hadn’t seen Shao at too many competitions before, but she had beaten some strong people before me, including 2012 Olympic Gold medalist Ji-Yeon Kim from Korea. Next in my bracket I had four-time Olympic medalist Olga Kharlan from Ukraine. I felt the nervousness begin to creep into my system; not only was Olga a formidable opponent but because when you’re fencing the world number one, you almost have to score two points to get one. It was the name of the game in saber, where the sport was subjective and points determined by the referee. Before the match started, I took a moment for myself. I sat in the stands with headphones over my hijab and my eyes closed, focused on my mantras and my breathing. When it was time to fence, I didn’t have any extra energy to be nervous. I channeled all of my energy into devising a game plan to fence Kharlan. It’s amazing how during a bout of severe fatigue, your body remembers the countless hours of training and is able to push through. I beat Kharlan that day decisively by a score of 15–12. I hugged Akhi, almost collapsing into his arms, happy to have won and happy to see my mom’s and sister’s faces in the crowd cheering.
My next match was in the semifinal round against Mariel. This time, Mariel won. Though I lost, I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness, relief, and pride that I was able to push through one of the most mentally and physically challenging days of my career. One of the benefits of being the athlete that is often overlooked is that it forces you to work harder, to keep your head down, and grind through whatever task lies ahead.
I ended the day’s competition on the podium, thankful and with the bronze medal. I was absolutely ecstatic. Just that morning I had doubted I’d be able to even make it through one bout without collapsing, much less believed that I’d be going home with a medal, but I was proof that miracles do happen and that God answers prayers. I’d prayed for protection and strength and had been given more than I had even asked for. To this day, I say my performance in Greece had to be a gift from Allah.
After the medal ceremony, I went and found my mother and Faizah in the stands. They were sitting near the American fencers. Mariel and her mother, Cathy, were seated nearby.
“I’m so proud of you, Ibtihaj,” my mother said as I sat down next to her. She hugged me tight, kissing my cheeks. I could tell she had been crying, not because she was sad, but because she was as exalted as I was. She cried because she knew how sick I’d been the night before. My mom saw the roller coaster of emotions fencing put me through, and from the very beginning, I could count on her support to help me through even my darkest hour. She had always reminded me, who was going to believe in me if I didn’t first believe in myself. It was a blessing to share this moment with both my mom and Faizah.
My mom then turned to Mariel and Cathy and said, “Congratulations to you, Mariel. Great fencing.”
Mariel didn’t respond, only half turning to barely smile in our direction. Her mother stayed silent, too. I was used to this cold treatment, but I couldn’t believe that they would treat my mom, the most kind-hearted person I knew, this way, too. It was an awkward moment, and I was filled with anger, but chose to keep silent.
Back in our hotel room I exploded. “Why do you continue to congratulate them when they can’t even respect you enough to say thank you?” I demanded, mad at Mariel and Cathy, not at my mom.
“It’s not about them, Ibtihaj,” Mom answered. “At the end of the day, I have to answer to Allah. That’s it.”
“But they’re so mean! Even to you,” I said, still fuming.
“Well, you have to show them that you’re better than them. You have to always be kinder than them, and that’s the way you hold up a mirror to their own dark reflections.”
I shrugged my shoulders as a sign that I’d reached my limit in the conversation. I found their immature behavior exhausting. But my mom is a good-natured and religious person, and that’s always been the way she has lived her life. She always tried to be a source of loving energy. It was a lesson I knew I needed to absorb more fully, because I wanted to be known as a good person, not just a good athlete.
Back home in Maplewood, I dove back in to my regularly scheduled program. I didn’t dwell too much on my bronze medal result in Athens because there were still a few qualifiers left and I had to get to work if I wanted to be prepared. On Monday morning, I sat down to plan my week, scheduling massage appointments, booking sessions with my trainer, arranging lesson times with my coach. Afterward I was getting ready for the gym when I started getting text messages from friends and family congratulating me on qualifying for the Olympic team. That struck me as odd, but I didn’t pay the messages very much attention. I figured if I had really made the Olympic team, I would be the first to know.
As I brushed my hair into a tight ponytail and arranged my hijab, my phone beeped again, alerting me to another text message. I was so used to ignoring my phone, though, it was easy to block out the noise.
I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and when I came back to my room, my phone was beeping nonstop.
“Geez,” I said aloud, grabbing my phone and scrolling through the email messages to see if there was anything of importance coming through.
And there it was. A Google alert flagging my name in an article posted on the United States Olympic Committee website, titled “Fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad Qualifies for Olympics, Will Become First Athlete to Compete in a Hijab.” I had officially qualified for the 2016 Olympic team! I screamed, “YES!” Then I tore out of my bedroom, dashed down two flights of steps, and found both of my parents on the couch in the living room.
“I qualified for the Olympic team!” I screeched, my phone still in my hand. I pulled the article onto the screen so they could read the news themselves. While they read, I did my own version of the happy dance. I bounced around the room in excitement. I jumped up in the air once and then again, repeatedly screamed, “Oh, my God!”
Mommy and Abu joined in my wild celebration. They both hugged me and screamed with me. It felt surreal. I didn’t realize that by winning the bronze in Athens, I had put myself so far ahead of my teammates that I qualified for the games before any
one else. But now it was official. At that point, no matter what happened in the last two months of the qualifying season, I was going to finish as either the number one or number two ranked saber fencer in the United States. No one could take that away from me. I was going to the Olympic Games to represent my country!
CHAPTER 16
The triumph can’t be had without the struggle.
—WILMA RUDOLPH
2 sprained ankles
1 torn wrist ligament
3 pulled hamstrings
6 pulled groin muscles
Tendinosis of right elbow
Right shoulder impingement
Dehydration
I thought about the physical toll actually getting to the Olympics had taken on my body and then considered the emotional toll as well. Now that I had achieved the goal I had set for myself, it made me wonder if all the pain and suffering, of both my body and mind, had been worth it. Was I crazy for knowingly putting myself through the most strenuous journey of my life? Maybe from the outside looking in it would seem crazy, but for me, it made total sense.
For the first few days after I learned I had qualified for the Olympics—along with Mariel, Dagmara, and alternate Monica Aksamit—I felt like I could finally exhale, like I’d been holding my breath in anticipation for four years straight. There was this huge sense of relief lifted from my shoulders, and I felt an enormous sense of pride for accomplishing something most people could only dream of. But that sense of relief was shortlived as I quickly realized there was more hard work yet to come. In preparation for the world’s most important sporting event, I would have to train even harder. The ante had been upped, and I had to be ready.
Once you qualify for the Olympic team, staying healthy up until to the day you compete at the games is critical, so optimum nutrition and adequate rest is just as important as what happens in the gym. Training becomes even more intense, and you have to take extra care to nurse every ailment. Additionally, the United States Anti-Doping Association (USADA) held random mandatory drug tests for the top athletes in each sport. Athletes could be tested both in and out of competition. Every quarter, we would have to submit our schedules for the next three months for possible drug testing. USADA doping control officers could show up at practice or home at any time to collect a urine sample. If you missed the test, failed the test, weren’t where you said you would be on your schedule, or failed to submit your whereabouts for the quarter, that would count as a failed test. Three fails, and you’d be out. No Olympics.
Added to this pressure cooker of Olympic preparation came the media. For most athletes who make an Olympic team, there is going to be some media attention. Considering how many media outlets are dedicated to sports, not to mention society’s all-consuming interest in the Olympic Games in particular, it’s inevitable that a newspaper, magazine, TV show, or website is going to want to do a story or profile on an Olympic athlete. Whether it’s the athlete’s hometown paper or a Sports Illustrated special on first-time Olympians, it was understood that as athletes en route to Rio, we needed to be media ready. USA Fencing had a woman in charge of public relations who often helped schedule interviews. Because I had been flagged by USA Fencing in the past for posts on my social feeds that they may have deemed “too political,” she always paid special attention to my interviews, perhaps afraid I would say something too radical or religious, but of course I never did. That was the thing about being the minority athlete, I had to be exemplary on the field to even be remotely acknowledged and conduct myself in a far more exemplary manner off the field to be acceptable. I didn’t want to use my newfound platform as an Olympian to talk about my religious beliefs, but that didn’t stop the flurry of attention I received because of my hijab. As soon as Team USA put out a press release announcing me as the first United States athlete in hijab to qualify for the Olympic Games, the phone didn’t stop ringing. I thought the media requests prior to making the Olympic team were numerous, but this was a whole new level of attention.
I appreciated the media interest in my story, because our nation desperately needed to see that Muslims were just as American as anyone else. We could be athletes. We could be female athletes. We could be African Americans. We lived in suburbia, went to work every day, and cared for our families. Just. Like. Everyone else. I wanted the country—the world—to see that normalcy in me and in everyone I represented. This seemed logical enough, and yet there was never a more crucial moment for something or someone to change the narrative for Muslims in America. It was in that moment, in early 2016, during the run-up to the November presidential elections, that Muslim Americans came under vicious attack from then presidential nominee Donald Trump, who in turn normalized bigotry and emboldened an entire subset of Americans to act on their hate. There were numerous cases of hate crimes against the American Muslim community, particularly Muslim women who wear the hijab. But really no one was spared from the groundswell of hate. Physical and verbal attacks hit the immigrant and LGBTQ communities hard as well.
In late 2015 Trump had publicly called for a ban on all Muslims entering the country, and by the late spring of 2016 he was suggesting the United States ban all immigrants from Muslim majority countries. He’d even suggested creating a Muslim registry, which would force all Muslims to register with the government and carry special IDs. With a presidential candidate inciting fear and encouraging hate against Muslims, the floodgates had opened for a likeminded neo-fascist American populace to openly discriminate. Overnight we’d gone from our first African-American president to a presidential nominee who was openly endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan and the leader of the American Nazi Party.
I had a decision to make. As a United States Olympian, would I stand on the front lines and publicly challenge our so-called leaders who had normalized hate?
I thought about one of my personal heroes, Muhammad Ali, and his circuitous path to being an agent of change. Growing up, I knew Ali was a heavyweight champion and one of the greatest of all time in the world of boxing. And as I got older, I came to know Ali as more than just an athlete. His fame was also due to his activism against the Vietnam War, his efforts to fight racism with his words, and his devotion to humanitarian causes around the world. In fact, his public conversion to Islam in 1964 and his refusal to fight in the war thrust Ali into the spotlight for his beliefs as a Muslim, not his boxing. Ali never caved to the pressure to reject Islam or to fight in Vietnam, even with the threat of jail time and a suspended boxing license. Muhammad Ali is undeniably the most famous and influential American Muslim of all time. And it was Ali’s legacy that inspired me to stand up to those who try to divide us along the lines of religion. He showed me what it means to have courage backed by religious conviction. Muhammad Ali put the question of whether one can be a Muslim and an American to rest. His reach extended far past the sporting world, and like many others before me, I was encouraged to stand my ground and share my truth because of his example.
So, as hate crimes against Muslims were increasing by double-digit numbers and Donald Trump’s divisive campaign continued with no signs of slowing down, I made a commitment to myself to seize every opportunity to unify and lead in an effort to challenge Trump’s hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric.
What was encouraging to me was that the more virulent the anti-Muslim sentiment seemed to get in right-wing quarters, the more media outlets, brands, and companies wanted to talk to me, work with me, and/or hear my perspective on current events. I was often asked if I thought my outspokenness on social issues would affect my prospects to partner with big-brand companies. To my surprise, during a time when anti-Muslim sentiment was at its peak, a lot of companies sought to help elevate the conversation on the importance of diversity and inclusion by endorsing athletes who differed in thought, culture, and/or lifestyle. I partnered with a range of companies from Visa, to Nike, to United Airlines. Here I was an outspoken Muslim athlete, representing a relatively obscure sport, and these major companies were coming to me. I was also fortu
nate enough to find a management team whose interests were aligned with my own in using my platform to fight for justice and end bigotry. The firm was a powerful partner for me that helped me develop my platform as an athlete activist. Over the course of history, sport has played a dynamic role in shaping cultural discourse. While fencing was still my priority, using my opportunity as an Olympian to unify and to lead was the greatest call-to-action of my life. Meanwhile, the biggest competitive moment of my life was only months away.
My management team helped manage my schedule, so I could fulfill media requests between training. Most media outlets, like the New York Times, ESPN, ABC Nightly News, and USA Today, to name a few, would send over production teams to interview me at the Westbrook Foundation in New York. But some media requests required me to travel to them instead.
One day I got an email from a talent manager at The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The email said they’d read about me in the press, loved my story, and wanted to pitch me for the show. I nearly dropped my phone in excitement as I read through the message. They said they would need to schedule time for a video call with one of their producers as soon as possible. A few days later, I Skyped with a producer named Kara, who went on about how she followed my career and wanted to know more about my life and story. She ended the conversation by telling me I had landed the gig, and she hoped her children would get the chance to meet me one day because she found my story so inspirational. I had to remember to act calm and not jump out of my seat in excitement. Instead, I tried to sound cool and professional, like I got a call from Ellen’s people every day, and let Kara know that it would be my honor to be on the show.
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