Sports

Khadjou Sambe: Senegal’s 1st female professional surfer

By Maria Rodriguez

Dakar, Sep 25 (efe-epa).- Senegal’s first professional female surfer and Olympic hopeful is encouraging other girls and women of color to take to the waves.

Khadjou Sambe, 25, from Dakar, started surfing when she was 13, despite it being a sport practiced exclusively by men in Senegal at that time.

She is now hoping to represent her country in the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year or in Paris in 2024.

“Why not? It’s a dream that everyone can have, representing your country and black women. It is truly my dream,” she says.

Sambe is also a coach for Black Girls Surf, founded by her coach Rhonda Harper, 52, from the United States which aims to build a network of coaches, mentors and trainers of color around the world.

“The first time I stood up on the board I started to scream, now I’m a surfer,” Sambe tells Efe.

“It’s something extraordinary, you feel something inside your heart, inside your body.

“You leave your head empty, you think of nothing else, it’s as if you were in another world, you think differently.”

She adds: “It’s as if the world you come from was before and now you are in another one.

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