According to sources from Jeddah throwing punches in a gym tucked away from prying eyes, a Saudi female boxing trainer asserts a right long denied too many women in the conservative kingdom the right to exercise. Meanwhile Halah Alhamrani, 41, runs a gym for women called FlagBoxing its motto is Fight like a Girl in the western Red Sea city of Jeddah, offering fitness classes such as callisthenics, CrossFit, boxing and kickboxing.
Meanwhile when relying on word-of-mouth publicity in a country where exercising in public is culturally deemed unbecoming for women, Alhamrani is working to empower a generation with little to no exposure to sports. Further under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 reform plan, the government is seeking to jump-start women's sports despite the risk of riling conservatives.
Moreover only four Saudi women featured in the Rio
Olympics in 2016 after two were named in the team for London in 2012 the first
time the Gulf nation sent female athletes to the Games. Furthermore the kingdom has since then been granting more prestige to the idea, appointing
prominent princess Reema bint Bandar to oversee women's sports in the kingdom
in 2016.
