Meet Kamali Thompson, the medical student with dreams of Olympic gold in fencing

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.

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.

[SOURCE: CNN]

Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad says she was detained by U.S. Customs

Olympic bronze medalist and New Jersey native Ibtihaj Muhammad, who made headlines during the summer games in Rio for being the first Olympian to compete for the U.S. while wearing a hijab, says she was recently detained by U.S. Customs officials, according to a report.

In an interview at the MAKERS Conference in California, Muhammad told PopSugar.com she was held for about two hours without an explanation. Muhammad told the blog she was "disheartened" by the experience.

"I can't tell you why it happened to me, but I know that I'm Muslim. I have an Arabic name. And even though I represent Team USA and I have that Olympic hardware, it doesn't change how you look and how people perceive you," she told PopSugar.com.

She did not elaborate on exactly where or when she was detained.

Read more: Olympian from N.J. says she was detained by U.S. Customs

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]