Ikram Kerwat, the Amazigh queen of boxing
Amazighe boxer Ikram Kerwat is the face of female emancipation.
On February 8, she made history. That day, in a sold-out fight in Pensacola (Florida), United States, Ikram Kerwat defeated American Angel Gladney and became world lightweight boxing champion. A feat for the one who had only started her professional career three years earlier. The Tunisian-German boxer was quick to share her victory with her fans by posting on social networks: "I am proud to be Tunisian, Muslim. »
Born in Béja, in the north of Tunisia, the 34-year-old young woman has not forgotten where she comes from. " It was in this city, when I was 9 years old, that for the first time in my life I touched a boxing glove. I remember it like it was yesterday," she confides, moved, showing her boxing belt on which the flag of her native country is engraved. Passionate about combat sports since childhood, she tried judo at the age of 4. And, at 13, she followed her parents to Germany, to Frankfurt, where she gave free rein to her love of boxing. She watched the matches of the legends of the discipline on television: Mohamed Ali, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr have no more secrets for her. She then decides to scour boxing clubs to do like her idols. Until the day Ikram meets Eppie Chapman, former world kickboxing champion, who, seeing in her a seed of legend, becomes her trainer.
But Ikram must move away from the halls to devote himself to his family. For a few years, boxing was just a breath of fresh air for her, a hobby. Married, mother of two children, this woman of character does not forget that she is made for the ring.
At 25, Ikram Kerwat moved to Berlin and resumed his gloves to fight as an amateur at SC Eintracht Berlin. In 2010, she was crowned city champion and third on the German national podium. The machine is restarted.
Roy Jones Jr, whom she adored as a child, became her trainer and manager. "I am blessed, she says, because today I work with him, a legend, it's a blessing and an honor. Five years later, the young woman began a professional career at Universal Hall in Berlin, where she had a string of victories: seven including six by knockout.
But her greatest fights are also outside the ring: she strives to knock out preconceptions by showing young girls that her discipline is not a sport reserved for men only. "Certainly, my mother had forbidden me boxing when I was young, like a mother who tries to protect her daughter", confides the one who defied the maternal ban to realize her dreams.
Source: websites