British boxer Ramla Ali is still insisting on writing down many historical achievements. After becoming the first female boxer to represent Somalia at the Olympic Games, she is now preparing for another achievement that Saudi Arabia will witness this month.
Ramla Ali will face her Dominican counterpart, Crystal Garcia Nova, in the first women’s match in the Kingdom, which will be held on the sidelines of the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship “Red Sea Fight” in Jeddah, according to the website “”ESPN“.
The upcoming “Red Sea Fight” will bring together the British boxer, Anthony Joshua, with the defending champion, the 35-year-old Aleksander Usik.
Usyk had put an end to Joshua’s dominance of the world heavyweight title by dropping him at home to Tottenham Hotspur in London, in the presence of 60,000 spectators, by unanimous refereeing points on September 25.
It is worth noting that Ramla, who is currently 31 years old, was a young girl when she fled to the United Kingdom, with her family, to escape the civil war in her country, which lost her older brother, and managed to achieve several titles in the British Championships.
In January 2018, she traveled to New Delhi, the capital of India, to become the first female boxer to represent Somalia at the Women’s World Championships.
Ramla expressed her happiness to be one of the parties to the first women’s match witnessed by Saudi Arabia, noting that she still does not know anything about the reactions of the fans about this, pointing out that she would like to perform Umrah during her presence in Saudi Arabia.
Ali entered history after becoming the first female athlete from her country to participate in the “noble art” competitions in the Tokyo Olympics, despite her early exit from the tournament at the time.
Somali boxer, Ramla, in front of her Romanian counterpart, Claudia Nachita, in the round of “16”, but her performance in the ring impressed thousands of Somalis back home.
Abdirahman Ali Mir, president of the Somali Boxing Federation, said that the next generation will look to Ramla as a role model.
He pointed out that Ramla’s representation of Somalia in the Olympics was historic and fulfilled the dreams of boxers after years of hard work and training, noting that her experience will motivate Somali boxers who will follow her path.
cruel childhood
Ramla was born in Mogadishu in the late 1980s or early 1990s (her exact age is unknown), when the country was in the early stages of a brutal civil war that continues to this day.
Her parents, whose names she refused to give in order to protect their safety because they still travel to Somalia occasionally, owned a textile shop.
Ramla moved at an early age to England with her family from Somalia as a war refugee. Then she started boxing as a teenager in an effort to lose weight.
Since then, she has loved the field of boxing, despite the strong objection of her family and tribe, which forced her to train in complete secrecy until her victory.
Ramla, who recently visited the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan as an ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund “UNICEF”, says that she did not want to talk about her life story, but later changed her mind so that her story is inspiring to many refugees and girls.
She says that his real age for her is 21 years, not 32, as estimated by the asylum documents, indicating that her real life began after her departure from the country riddled with conflicts and wars, where her life and the life of her family were permanently on the edge of danger.
It should be noted that in addition to her professionalism in boxing and her desire to be a coach one day, she occasionally practices her hobby in modeling while writing about her experiences and experiences in life.