Imre Foldi/AP Ibtihaj Muhammad (second from right) will become the first U.S. woman to compete at the Olympics in a hijab after qualifying for this year's games in Rio.
An American Muslim woman will become the first person to represent the U.S. at the Olympics while wearing a hijab.
Iftihaj Muhammad, from Maplewood, New Jersey, is now assured of a chance to fence at the games in Rio after earning bronze at a Women's World Cup event in Greece on Saturday.
The 30-year-old Duke graduate first began fencing when she was 13 growing up in the Garden State, when her family recommended the sport because its body-covering equipment wouldn't require her to get a uniform different from everyone else's.
Ibtihaj Muhammad via Instagram Muhammad said her family first encouraged her to take up fencing because she would not need to make a special uniform to cover herself.
"My parents were looking for a sport for me to play where I wouldn't have to alter the uniform as a Muslim woman," she told Buzzfeed[1].
Muhammad was a three-time All-American in college and is now ranked seventh in the world in sabre, the swashbuckling style in which she specializes, after a series of podium finishes.
SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images The American fencer (right, in 2011) is now ranked seventh in the world in the sabre style.
The trailblazing talent has also made headlines for her fashion line Louella, which she promotes as both affordable and modest.
She told USA Today[2] the connections between her sport and her sartorial pursuits, "You do have to be super decisive, you hav eto know your action and do it 100%."
Muhammad will be accompanied in Rio by fellow sabre dueler Mariel Zagunis, who won the gold medal at both the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing games.
