Former boxer Brahim Asloum, Olympic champion in 2000, criticizes the racist and misogynistic insults received by Sarah Ourahmoune, who gave up running for president of the French Boxing Federation alongside Dominique Nato.
He had difficulty containing his emotion and his anger. Brahim Asloum provided strong support to Sarah Ourahmoune on Tuesday on the set of the L’Equipe channel. The former boxer, Olympic champion in 2000 in Sydney, castigated the racist and misogynistic insults received by the 2016 Olympic vice-champion, who gave up running for president of the French Boxing Federation alongside Dominique Nato, with which she formed a pair.
As she explained on BFMTV, the 42-year-old ex-fighter was the target of violent attacks from members of the boxing world who sent her private messages on WhatsApp calling her a “dirty Arab “, “Arab service” or “housekeeper of the federation”. Enough to ulcerate Brahim Asloum.
“I’m a little ashamed, I’m in pain. Frankly, I’m suffering,” reacted the former pugilist.
“I put myself in Sarah’s shoes. We have the same profiles, origins, we love our country. We did everything to be able to wear the blue-white-red flag, live up to it and do good for our discipline . And what hurts me the most is that it was my world that insulted him with all the names. And it was people with origins, people like us, who allowed themselves to say to Sarah. cleaning lady of the federation’, ‘dirty Arab’… (takes a breath) What are we talking about?”
“Who do you think you are?”
“I knew that society was in trouble, that things were going in all directions. But it’s a sport where we need to be with each other,” continued Asloum. “And there, you have a remarkable woman, who was an amateur world champion, an Olympic vice-champion, an exemplary mother, who comes out of childbirth to return to the Olympic world, who demonstrates this resilience, this will, this determination… but tell me who do you think you are? This group of coaches, three-quarters of them have not done a tenth of what this champion has done And they allow themselves to put their title on the line, to talk about it. her origins, to disrespect her. She is much more cultured than three-quarters of the coaches in this collective.
“But what an example of shit,” said the 45-year-old coach and consultant.
“We sometimes see it in other sports, but for us, it’s only young people from immigrant backgrounds. These comments should not exist among us. I’m not saying that they should exist elsewhere, but still less here (…) Sarah appears in almost all bodies. She is respected. She does a crazy job in boxing. We rarely have champions who reach this intellectual level and there we disrespect her like that. , as if it were a rotten board”.
