David Bridges
Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez revealed that she competed on the 2024 Paris Olympics—all whereas seven months pregnant.
Hafez, who’s from Cairo and was showing at her third Olympics, made her method to the ultimate 16 within the girls’s saber particular person competitors, shared that she had achieved the feat whereas anticipating her first baby with husband Ibrahim Ihab, whom she married in March 2023.
The 26-year-old earned a spot at her third Video games, having first competed in Rio in 2016 after which the much-delayed 2020 Video games in Tokyo, the place she positioned thirty sixth and Twenty ninth, respectively.
“7 MONTHS PREGNANT OLYMPIAN!” the Olympian wrote on Instagram on Monday. “What seems to you as two gamers on the rostrum, they had been truly three! It was me, my competitor, & my yet-to-come-to-our-world, little child!”
The athlete added that she and her unborn baby have had their “justifiable share of challenges,” each “bodily” and “emotional” all through the occasion as a result of being pregnant, however powered by to perform what she did.
“The rollercoaster of being pregnant is hard by itself, however having to combat to maintain the stability of life & sports activities was nothing in need of strenuous, nonetheless value it,” Hafez continued earlier than thanking her husband and household for his or her help. “I’m scripting this put up to say that delight fills my being for securing my place within the spherical of 16!”
Hafez defeated American world No. 10 Elizabeth Tartakovsky within the spherical of 32 earlier than shedding to Jeon Hayoung of South Korea. She beforehand competed for Egypt on the 2016 and 2020 Olympics in sabre. Hafez entered the Olympics because the Twenty ninth-ranked sabre fencer on the planet and Egypt’s prime competitor, in response to the Worldwide Fencing Federation.
A former gymnast—nationwide gymnastics champion in Egypt, in response to the Worldwide Fencing Federation—with a level in medication from Cairo College, Hafez is a three-time Olympian who gained gold medals within the particular person and crew saber occasions on the 2019 African Video games. She completed Monday’s competitors formally ranked sixteenth, her greatest end in any of her three Olympic appearances.
This time round, she expressed that she’s leaving Paris with a distinct sense of delight than her two earlier journeys to the Video games.
“This particular Olympics was totally different; Thrice *Olympian* however this time carrying a bit Olympian one! ❤️” Hafez wrote.
Maya Kensington
