At age 15, Elsidita Selaj decided she wanted to box and through sheer stubbornness, she has succeeded, breaking down her family’s resistance and sexist attitudes to become Albania’s first — and only — competitive female boxer.
“In the beginning, boxing was for me an impossible, unimaginable love,” the now 20-year-old said after a training session in her hometown of Shkoder.
“But thanks to my determination, it has become a possible love that belongs entirely to me,” she added.
Photo: AFP
It was five years ago that she began hitting the boxing gym every day after school, begging to be trained in a sport considered the domain of men in a country with strict gender roles.
Jetmir Kuci, a nine-time Albanian boxing champion and coach, initially refused to work with her.
“I was a bit traditional,” he said. “It was very difficult to accept to train Elsidita, thinking about the judgements of the people of the city where we live.”
Eventually, he agreed.
“With her firmness, she was able to break a taboo for all of us,” he added.
Selaj, a licensed amateur boxer, has proved her prowess, taking home a bronze in 2017 at a regional Balkans tournament, and a silver in 2018 and bronze in 2019 at the European Amateur Boxing Championships.
She has her sights set on the Tokyo Olympic Games, but would need to overcome a tough qualifying round in the spring.
“The goal of every athlete, not only me, is the Olympics,” she said.
Her coach believes that a postponement of the Games due to the COVID-19 pandemic “might work in her favor, because it gave her more time.”
If it is not Japan, there would still be Paris in 2024, he added.
Success has won Selaj support from her family — who became her biggest fans — as well as from the town hall, which pays her a monthly allowance of 490 euros (US$595) in a poor country where the average salary is 420 euros per month.
Boxing is a relatively new sport in Albania. It was banned in the 1960s by the country’s former communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, who considered it “too violent.”
Today the country has about 1,100 boxing enthusiasts, about 300 of whom participate in national and international competitions.
Still a university student, she hits the gym for up to six hours a day, often sparring with 16-year-old Ertan Kraja, who also aspires to make it big in boxing.
“At first I was afraid to hit her too hard, but given her strength, her abilities, I got used to it — it’s like fighting a man,” he said after a bout.
After her initial resistance, Selaj’s 64-year-old grandmother, Kimete Bashaj, has become an avid boxing fan, following the world’s top bouts on TV.
“I didn’t think that Elsidita should be an Albanian boxer because as such, she could face prejudice. But now that she has received medals, I want her to continue,” she said, sitting next to her granddaughter’s trophies.
Selaj, for her part, finally feels whole.
“Boxing for me is more than a sport: It is in perfect harmony with my character, my state of mind, which is animated by a kind of aggressive rebellion, but which inside hides a lot of love and passion,” she said, wiping off beads of sweat.
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