United States: Aaminah Abdrabboh, the first veiled girl to win gold in Jiu-jitsu

From the height of her 12 springs, Aaminah Abdrabboh, a young American of the Muslim faith, less frail than she seems, excels in a thousand-year-old martial art: the one loved by the Samurai in remote times, Jiu-jitsu.

Last July, under the Florida sun, dressed in her competition kimono and hijab, the rising star of “the art of flexibility” across the Atlantic showed the full extent of her agility and power. on the mats. Offensively smooth, she channeled the vigor of her adversaries to the point of overthrowing them completely, without ever departing from her natural grace.

Thanks to the lifting of the veil ban on her favorite sport in 2014, when she was just a little girl who played on the mats of the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu club run by her parents, professor and black belt Mohammad Abdrabboh and his wife Nancy Marini, an outstanding fighter was born.

Just a month ago, the very promising Aaminah Abdrabboh experienced the consecration in Kissimmee, leaving her mark on a high-flying international tournament, the Pan Kids Jiu-Jitsu Championship 2023, as well as the contemporary history of this noble Japanese art, as old as Herod.

Haloed by her very first claim to fame which made her enter the annals of Jiu-jitsu, as the first veiled jiu-jitsuka gold medalist, Aaminah Abdrabboh was finally able to give free rein to his joy. The pressure of competition having subsided, a beautiful smile lit up his youthful face.

The fierce fighter, subjected to intensive training, then gave way to a young girl in heaven, of great maturity: ” JI’m so happy to have won and to have shown people that with a hijab, you can do anything! 10 years ago, I would not even have been able to register for this tournament, because wearing the hijab was prohibited in competition “, she exulted in an interview granted to the daily newspaper of Detroit, the city where she is from, who hastened to collect her impressions.

As soon as their daughter’s historic victory was announced, Aaminah Abdrabboh’s parents, overwhelmed with happiness, thanked the one whose influence contributed, via an online petition launched in 2011, to putting an end to the he ban on wearing the hijab in competitions: the Brazilian Caroline De Lazzer, black belt in Jiu-jitsu, true craftsman of inclusion on the tatami mats.