{"id":52126,"date":"2025-04-04T12:48:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/gladiators-first-hijabi-contender-aneila-afsar-aims-to-inspire\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T12:48:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T12:48:19","slug":"gladiators-first-hijabi-contender-aneila-afsar-aims-to-inspire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/gladiators-first-hijabi-contender-aneila-afsar-aims-to-inspire\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiators’ first hijabi contender Aneila Afsar aims to inspire"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Abu Bakar Yasin<\/span><\/p>\n

BBC Newsbeat<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBC\/HungryBBC\/Hungry Bear Media Ltd\/David MacCormack<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aneila Afsar made history as the first contender to appear on Gladiators wearing a hijab<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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When Aneila Afsar first appeared on Gladiators, she made history.<\/p>\n

The popular BBC One show which pits gladiators against contenders in a series of physical challenges was rebooted last year and Aneila has made it to Saturday’s semi-finals.<\/p>\n

She became the first person ever to compete on the show wearing a hijab and says she gains strength from wearing it.<\/p>\n

“I love that I have the opportunity to go on this iconic show and inspire young Muslim girls, women from my community, and show them that there’s nothing we can’t do,” the 26-year-old tells BBC Newsbeat. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Many Muslim girls and women wear the hijab, an Islamic head covering, as a symbol of modesty.<\/p>\n

Aneila hasn’t always worn one, only choosing to cover her hair three years ago, and part of that was because she didn’t see other hijabis within sports. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

‘My superpower’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The mum-of-two from Lancashire is a former taekwondo champion, winning a Commonwealth Championship in the youth category.<\/p>\n

Back then, she “didn’t have the courage to embrace the scarf”.<\/p>\n

“Part of that was because of not having female Muslim role models in the sport or sports in general.<\/p>\n

“It was hard adapting to wearing a headscarf while being in the fitness industry.<\/p>\n

“Going from not covering to then covering everything which includes your hair, you can feel as if people are staring, you don’t feel confident,” she says.<\/p>\n

But as she got older, Aneila found the confidence to be that role model herself and now she sees the hijab differently. <\/p>\n

“It’s empowering, it’s my superpower. I love it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBCBBC \/ Graeme Hunter \/ Hungry Bear Media Ltd<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aneila made it to the semi-finals as the fastest runner up after just missing out on certain victory during her last appearance<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The hijab can sometimes be a controversial topic in sport and at last year’s Paris Olympics, French athletes were banned from wearing one<\/a> even though the International Olympic Committee allowed them to.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Moroccan footballer Nouhaila Benzina made history as the first player to wear a hijab at the Women’s World Cup<\/a>. They had been banned until 2014 by the game’s governing body Fifa. <\/p>\n

Since first appearing on the show, Aneila says not everyone has been so positive about her hijab though.<\/p>\n

She’s posted about receiving Islamophobic and racist abuse on social media, but says overall it’s been heavily outweighed by the encouraging reaction.<\/p>\n

That’s important to Aneila who says she wants to show “you can wear a hijab, be involved in fitness and still pursue your dreams”.<\/p>\n

“I’m getting messages from girls as young as 12 telling me that I’m the reason they’re taking gymnastics again and that they feel that they can now be involved in sport.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"BBC\/HungryBBC\/Hungry Bear Media Ltd\/David MacCormack<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The former taekwondo champion says she’s had lots of messages of support<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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And it’s not just young girls who’ve been inspired by Aneila. <\/p>\n

“Since being on Gladiators, I’ve received messages from women in their 40s who say if there was a visible Muslim woman wearing a headscarf when they were younger, their whole journey with fitness would have been different,” she says.<\/p>\n

And she hopes her journey on Gladiators will encourage her own children to feel comfortable being themselves too. <\/p>\n

“My daughter was getting older and I wanted to be a visible Muslim role model for her,” she says.<\/p>\n

“I have used my children to be my inspiration. It’s because of them I wanted to wear a headscarf.”<\/p>\n

Aneila says the reaction she’s had since first appearing on Gladiators helped her realise “we can push the barriers out, break any stereotypes”.<\/p>\n

“The hijab is not a limitation.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gladiators will air on BBC One at 17:50 on Saturday 5 April.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen to Newsbeat live<\/a> at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abu Bakar Yasin BBC Newsbeat BBC\/Hungry Bear Media Ltd\/David MacCormack Aneila Afsar made history as the first contender to appear on Gladiators wearing a hijab When Aneila Afsar first appeared on Gladiators, she made history. The popular BBC One show which pits gladiators against contenders in a series of physical challenges was rebooted last year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[279],"tags":[16752,180,16751,13343,8512,16750,7043],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52128,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52126\/revisions\/52128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}