Monday July 26, 2021
TOKYO (HOL) - Somali female boxer Ramla Ali will be taking on Romania’s Maria Nechita in round 16 under the women featherweight category this afternoon in the ongoing Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
The boxing match which has attracted huge support in Somalia will kick off at 2.14 local time.
Ramla who has been representing the UK and won an English boxing title in 2015 to become the first Muslim woman to win the title has since switched her representation to Somalia.
"I think that I would make my mum more proud if I competed for Somalia. If she saw me representing her country I think she would be a lot more proud, I think my dad would be a lot more proud as well. That's ultimately what you want really, to make your parents proud,” Ramla said in a past interview.
The 31-year-old professional boxer was born in Somalia but headed to the UK in the early 1990s following the outbreak of civil war.
Besides boxing, Ramla is a model, activist and author. She was named British’s Vogue Forces of Change and is currently working with skincare brand La Roche-Posay.
Ramla who was ranked number 9 in African Games under the featherweight category in 2019 says her boxing career started with the need to cut weight after she was bullied in school.
“I got into boxing to lose weight and to do more fitness because I was being bullied at school.”