Olympian Ibtihaj Muhammad On Training While Fasting For Ramadan

Muhammad is widely known as the first American Muslim woman to compete for Team USA in the hijab. She has a bronze medal in team sabre from the 2016 Olympics.

An excerpt: It's interesting when you grow up different from everyone else, you know? I think that you have an easier time just being yourself and existing and not having to conform. I can't really try to fit in because I'm always gonna be this black chick with a hijab, right? So it's like, whatever, I'm gonna do my own thing. So I didn't really struggle with trying to fit in with other people because it's like trying to fit a square in a circle. To them, I'm always gonna be different. So what was great about fencing for me is that when I put on my fencing mask, I look like everyone else. And it was this "ah-hah" moment for me as a kid, because I didn't have to deal with the stares anymore. Because when my fencing mask went on, you didn't see my hijab. You didn't see that I was black. You didn't see that I was a girl. All you knew was: this person can fence.

So, I've spent my entire life trying to balance training and Ramadan. And for me, those.... in doing those two things simultaneously — observing the fast and also training, sometimes for really really important competitions for me — there was never a moment of doubt of like, "Oh! I don't think I'm going to fast for this Ramadan."