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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.