Kicking off “Breaking Through,” a month-long series marking Black History Month, TODAY’s Craig Melvin spotlights Kamali Thompson, a medical student with big dreams of competing in Tokyo this summer as a fencer. She acknowledges there are not a lot of African-Americans in fencing yet, “but it’s growing” – and she gives Craig a lesson in the sport.
African American news blog that features news that may get little or no coverage in the mainstream media
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
Olympic hero Ibtihaj Muhammad now has a Barbie doll
Mattel , which makes Barbie, announced Monday that the latest doll in its "Shero" collection will be modeled after Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad. In 2016, Muhammad became the first American to compete in the games while wearing a hijab.
"I'm proud to know that little girls everywhere can now play with a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab! This is a childhood dream come true," Muhammad said in a tweet. The news was announced at Glamour's Women of the Year summit. The doll will go on sale in 2018.
"Ibtihaj is an inspiration to countless girls who never saw themselves represented, and by honoring her story, we hope this doll reminds them that they can be and do anything," Sejal Shah Miller, Barbie's vice president of global marketing, said in a statement.
Thursday, February 09, 2017
Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad says she was detained by U.S. Customs
Read more: Olympian from N.J. says she was detained by U.S. Customs
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Team USA fencer Daryl Homer wins silver medal
Daryl Homer, the son of a single mother from the Virgin Islands who became fascinated by fencing when he saw a picture of two fencers in a children’s dictionary at the age of 5, became the first American to win a silver medal in men’s individual sabre in 112 years Wednesday night at the Olympic Games.
Homer, 26, the 2015 world silver medalist who is ranked 10th in the world, lost the gold medal match to longtime rival Aron Szilagyi of Hungary, 15-8. Szilagyi also won the gold in London four years ago, where Homer finished sixth.
“I’m just very, very pleased,” Homer said. “Just happy to be on the podium, happy that I competed, happy that I left it all out there. I think I just overthought the match a little bit, got a little of the heebie-jeebies.”
Homer became the first U.S. man to win an Olympic medal in individual sabre since Peter Westbrook, who won the bronze at the boycotted 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Like Westbrook, Homer is black, a rarity in the sport.
[SOURCE]