U.S. Olympian who wears hijab offers riposte to Trump

When fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad goes to the Rio Games this summer she will make history as the first U.S. Olympian to compete wearing a hijab.

But as she blazes a path on the world stage, she is worried about her security — at home. She fears it is being compromised by presidential hopeful Donald Trump ^[1], who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

"When you incite hateful speech and rhetoric like that, the people who say it never think about the repercussions and how that affects Muslims," Muhammad said in a recent Time magazine article. "Specifically Muslim women who wear their religion every single day. So then you star t to think, am I going to be safe?"

The 30-year-old has qualified to compete in sabre fencing (individual and team events) at the Olympics in August, three months before the U.S. elections. (The U.S. team will be officially announced in April.)

"I still have faith in the greater America that we will not vote someone as ignorant as Donald Trump into office," Muhammad told Time. "As a country, we are collectively more intelligent than that. I think he represents everything we aren't."

Muhammad was born in Maplewood, which is just east of Newark, N.J., and grew up as the middle child of five. Her father, Shamsiddin Muhammad, is a retired narcotics detective.

Her mother, Inayah Muhammad, a schoolteacher, encouraged all her kids to be competitive, even if it meant altering every uniform her daughter wore.

At 13, the athlete started f encing in high school after Inayah saw fencers practising in the gym. She realized there was at least one sport where her daughter's outfit wouldn't require modification.

"As a Muslim female, the sport was uniquely accommodating," Muhammad said in her USA Fencing bio. "My religion requires that my body be fully covered and fencing did just that." The African-American set out to prove that race, religion and gender were not barriers to success, she writes.

In 2002, the athlete joined the Peter Westbrook Foundation, a non-profit that operates out of the Fencers Club in Manhattan. The foundation is renowned for its Saturday program for participants aged 8 to 18, most from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the greater New York City region. Eight-five per cent are black or Latino.

Westbrook, the foundation's founder and CEO, was a member of the U.S. Olympic team from 1976 through to 1996. H e was the first African-American to win a fencing medal, at the 1984 Games.

Muhammad's mother would drive her daughter to Manhattan for a lesson after her high school volleyball practice, she told Buzzfeed. Muhammad ate dinner in the car.

"Most parents tell their kids before matches to do their best, or to have fun," Muhammad said. "My mom always said the same thing: 'Don't waste my money."

Muhammad was recruited to fence at Duke University, where she graduated with bachelor degrees in African and African-American studies. She pursued fencing after deciding the sport needed more diversity.

"Historically, it's always been a white sport reserved for people with money," Muhammad told Buzzfeed.

Westbrook says his foundation, which has a record of training Olympic-calibre fencers, pays for her membership to the club and lesso ns, and supports her trips to qualifying events, mostly in Europe or the Middle East.

Muhammad is ranked No. 2 in the U.S., seventh in the world. At the Pan Am Games in Toronto last summer, she and teammates Dagmara Wozniak and Mariel Zagunis won gold in the women's sabre team competition.

Her younger sister, Faizah, is also a nationally ranked fencer and could qualify for Rio if she does well in two coming tournaments, says Westbrook.

Ibtihaj's three sisters and brother joined her in founding Louella, an affordable online women's clothing company, in 2014.

For some groups, the athlete's success couldn't be timelier.

"In the U.S. you're having this whole discussion around Islamophobia and Muslims," says Amira Elghawaby, communications director for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, "and there you have it — this youn g woman who is representing the United States at the Olympics who wears the hijab, who is proudly American and proudly Muslim.

"That sort of speaks to the myths of what being a westerner looks like, or should look like."