“Historic Olympic Moment: Hijab-Wearing Gold Medalist Sparks Controversy and Defiance in France’s Xenophobia Debate!”
More than a decade ago, Sifan – who was a young asylum seeker from Ethiopia at the time – embarked on a journey that would lead to history at the Tokyo Olympics with two golds and a marathon championship in Paris, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday.
“We immediately saw she was a talented athlete. Even a blind horse could see she would be a good runner,” Ad Peeters, president of the Eindhoven Atletiek coaching team, said.
More than a decade ago, Sifan was a young asylum seeker from Ethiopia
Image credits: sifanhassan
Born in Adama, southeast of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Sifan was raised on a farm by her mother and grandmother. Aged 15, she left for the Netherlands. She has never explained why, as per Al Jazeera.
She was reportedly first housed in a center for underaged asylum seekers in Zuidlaren in the northern Netherlands.
The Olympian previously told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that she cried there every day, saying: “I was like a flower that got no sun.”
Sifan finally arrived in Eindhoven to do a nursing course and fell in with other Ethiopians, some of whom were members of the local athletics club, according to Al Jazeera.
“What a force she is,” a reader commented
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