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Basketballer Asma Elbadawi shares how she found courage in her individuality
By Jessica Vince 01/02/2021
Rising star Asma Elbadawi has become an influential voice in the world of sport, taking the challenges she’s faced as a female Muslim basketball player and turning them into worldwide triumphs. She successfully overturned the International Basketball Federation’s ban on religious headgear in professional basketball, using her influence to shatter glass ceilings and fight for female empowerment.
Away from the court, Asma’s powerfully written poems are making an impact, too.
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There were 2,000 people waiting expectantly as Asma Elbadawi stood staring out, heart pounding, hands shaking.
She was trying to remember the words to her poetry - along with what had compelled her to share them with such a large, live audience.
“I came off that stage, went to the hotel, looked at myself in the mirror, and I started crying,” she tells
The National. “I just remember thinking, ‘Wow. A lot of people told you you re going to fail and look at you now.’”
Buoyed by her initial success, spoken word performance soon became a therapeutic means of unravelling the world for Elbadawi. She began to make a name for herself and decided to use that platform to challenge a ban on hijabs that effectively sidelined Muslim women in the sport she loved.