Tenacious Guinean wrestler Fatoumata Yarie Camara works to see her Olympic dream realized as she maneuvers past cultural obstacles, the pandemic and lack of support from her own country.
At age 14, Camara was playing soccer — then her favorite sport — when she caught the eye of a soldier who wrestled. He was impressed with her strategy, her moves, her physique. “You have talent,” he told her, and asked if she’d ever considered wrestling. She’d never heard of it. He described the combat sport, and visited her family to earn their support.
Soumah sold candy and eggs out of a roadside kiosk and went door-to-door in better-off neighborhoods offering to wash clothes, clean homes and prepare meals. After working all day, she then cooked for her own family. Morocco ultimately asked the wrestlers to leave because of the virus. Camara went home, to a country without proper wrestling facilities.Fearing the pandemic and a lack of activity, coach Vincent Aka — a former Olympian himself — moved Camara and three other West African wrestlers to his native Ivory Coast.In April, Camara beat wrestlers from Egypt, Guam and Algeria to make the final of the African and Oceania qualifying tournament in Tunisia.
“If I were in another country, maybe my life would change a bit,” Camara said. “You are bringing honor to your country. The country hopefully pays you back. If the country does not, if they do nothing for their athletes, then how will others have the courage to come train like you? Because it requires a lot of sacrifice.”Before she left Rome, she had one crucial pre-Olympic task on her list.
“Fatoumata Yarie Camara carries the hope of the entire Guinean nation. She is the hope of a whole people,” said Ben Daouda Nansoko, secretary general of Guinea’s Olympic committee. “This is the career of this girl that shines.”Yet, days before the Games, the budget for the trip hadn’t been approved. And she still had no plane ticket.
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