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BOXING

Swedish boxer Badou Jack misses title after draw with Canada’s Adonis Stevenson

Haitian-born Canadian Adonis Stevenson retained his World Boxing Council light-heavyweight title on Saturday after fighting Sweden's Badou Jack to a majority draw in which no judge scored him a winner.

Published: 20 May 2018 14:30 CEST
Swedish boxer Badou Jack misses title after draw with Canada's Adonis Stevenson
Badou Jack (L) punches Adonis Stevenson (R) during their WBC Light Heavyweight title fight in Toronto on Saturday. Photo: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images/AFP
Stevenson, a 40-year-old southpaw, kept the title after two judges scored the bout 114-114 and the third saw Jack as a 115-113 winner in the title bout at Toronto. In a fight nobody lost, both fighters saw themselves as winners.
 
“I thought I definitely won the fight,” Jack said. “No judge had him winning.”
 
Stevenson's record went to 29-1-1 while Jack settled for his third career draw against 22 wins and a lone defeat.
 
“I feel I win the fight,” Stevenson said. “I hurt him in the body. He got slowed down. I keep pressure on him. He moved slick but I touched him more all the time. I think I win this fight.”
 
All three judges awarded Jack the 12th round to lift him into the draw, which could set the stage for a title rematch.
 
“I feel I win this fight but Badou is a good fighter, two-time world champion,” Stevenson said. “I can give him a rematch if he needs one.”
 
Jack is ready, but wants Stevenson to fight outside Canada for the first time since September 2011. On Twitter, the Swedish slugger set the stage for another bout against the Canadian. 
“Let's do a rematch. Let's do it in Vegas,” Jack said. “I came to his place. Now it's his turn to come to my place.”
 
Jack settled for a draw two fights ago in January 2017 with James DeGale and wondered if the fact he is promoted by retired unbeaten champion Floyd Mayweather played a role in his struggles to get more than draws.
 
“I have no idea,” Jack said. “It could be they are jealous of Floyd. I'm one of Floyd's top fighters. I don't know. I can't do anything about it. I'm not the judge. I've got to respect.”
 
Stevenson extended the second-longest active reign in boxing. He knocked out Chad Dawson for the crown in 2013 and since then stopped six of eight prior foes with two other victories by unanimous decision.
 
Stevenson, who had not fought since stopping Poland's Andrzej Fonfara last June in Montreal, dominated early but struggled late as Jack, with Mayweather at ringside cheering him on, bloodied the champion's nose in the eighth round and controled the pace to the finish.
 
Jack, a 2008 Olympian for his father's homeland of Gambia, owned the WBC super-middleweight crown from 2015 to 2017 and stopped Britain's Nathan Cleverly last August for the World Boxing Association crown, but relinquished the title for the chance to fight Stevenson.

SPORTS

Germany’s female Muslim boxer dreaming of glory: ‘It’s always been clear I’d fight with a headscarf’

Berlin boxer Zeina Nassar's fighting spirit has won her plenty of titles, but her battle to wear the hijab in the ring has also made her an equal opportunity champion.

Published: 26 September 2019 10:05 CEST
Germany's female Muslim boxer dreaming of glory: 'It's always been clear I'd fight with a headscarf'
Nassar at Berlin's TSC Boxing Hall in October 2018. Photo: DPA

Today, the 21-year-old, who discovered female boxing by watching online videos as a teenager, is a German amateur featherweight champion and dares to dream of Olympic glory.

Her path so far took all the determination she could muster, Nassar told AFP, sipping an iced coffee at a cafe in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, where she grew up.

“It was as if I had to prove twice as much because not only am I a woman who boxes, but I also wear the headscarf,” she said, during a break between gruelling training sessions.

“In the end it made me stronger,” she laughed, her made-up face known to countless Instagram fans framed by a pastel-coloured floral headscarf, sunglasses perched on top.

Next year's Tokyo Olympics and then the Paris Games in 2024 “are my great dream, my great goal,” smiled the young woman.

Nassar training in Berlin in October 2018. Photo: DPA

That dream only came within reach in February, when the International Boxing Association (AIBA) amended its rules to allow Muslim boxers to wear a hijab and fully cover their bodies in the ring.

When it comes to qualifying, “now the prerequisites are the same for all,” said Nassar, who in training and in competition wears the head covering as well as a full-length top and leggings.

“Only sporting performance should count. We must not be reduced to our external appearance.”

'I'm super fast'

Her list of achievements already includes six Berlin titles in the featherweight category, and the 2018 German Championship title.

In 24 official fights, Nassar, who weighs 57 kilos, recorded 18 victories, including one by KO, which is rare in this category.

“My boxing style is very unconventional but I'm super fast. It's my strength,” she said, mimicking a few uppercuts and hooks.

“For my opponents it's very unpleasant to box against me,” she laughed.

But for many years, the education and sociology student could not compete in international fights because of her attire.

This year, the German Boxing Federation, which had changed its own rules in 2013, put forward Nassar for the European Under-22 Championships, which however barred her due to her outfit.

Nassar, who also speaks Arabic and regularly travels to Lebanon, her parents' country of origin, said it never occurred to her to take off her hijab for boxing.

“Why should I have done that?” she said. “For me it has always been clear that I would fight with my headscarf.”

In Germany, the wearing of the headscarf tends to be widely accepted on the grounds of religious freedom.

Nassar outside of the Berlin boxing hall. Photo: DPA

Critics

The fight isn't won yet, however.

The Berliner's Olympic ambitions, like those of other sportswomen wearing the headscarf, run up against critics who brandish a rule for the Olympics prohibiting the display of any political, religious or racial symbols.

“Even if the boxing association, like most federations, has given in, the Olympic Charter has not changed,” argued Annie Sugier, president of the International Women's Rights League.

Criticizing the participation in the Olympics of countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia whose sportswomen have to be covered “from head to toe”, Sugier called hijabs in sports “sexual apartheid”.

In France in April, Iranian female boxer Sadaf Khadem won her first official fight dressed in shorts and a vest.

'Modest fashion'

Despite the controversy surrounding the hijab in some Western countries, sportswear giants have already begun offering less skin-revealing clothes to cash in on the “modest fashion” market, which is now worth hundreds of millions of euros.

Nassar is a brand ambassador for US sportswear maker Nike, which has been marketing a sports hijab for nearly two years.

The female boxer, who is very active on social media, has become a role model for young Muslim women in particular.

“If you want to get to the top, you have to fight,” read a recent message by the boxer.

“Nothing is simply a gift. Accepting challenges and growing beyond them. And don't forget to smile.”

Before leaving the cafe, she posted a new picture of herself on Instagram and told AFP: “I want to show people that anything is possible if you fight for it.”

Nassar's picture was also used in a poster campaign to mark the 70th anniversary of the German constitution, the Basic Law.

It promoted Article 4, which states that “the undisturbed practice of religion shall be guaranteed”.

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