Moroccan B-Girl Elmamouny wants to conquer the world
Having won over her parents at the start of her breaking career, Elmamouny won the inaugural African Championship in her hometown of Rabat to become the first qualifier in Olympic breaking history. Find out more about the 23-year-old rising star.
Breaking
"I want to become world champion. Right now, it's my only objective and I'm focussing on it."
That was Moroccan B-Girl Elmamouny speaking to Morocco's L'Observateur in July 2021. And she could trump that ambition by becoming breaking's first Olympic gold medallist.
The 23-year-old showed she is very much on the right track by triumphing in the first WDSF African Breaking Championship to secure a spot in the sport's Games debut at Paris 2024.
In her hometown of Rabat, Elmamouny - born Fatima Zahra El Mamouny - narrowly defeated South Africa's Midian Leah in the final to make history.
She told WDSF afterwards, "It's super super super crazy to win this. For me, it was so hard because my dad was in hospital. To do the battle at this time was really hard but I wanted to do it for him and I did it for him."
Having been somewhat sceptical about their daughter's early forays into breaking, her parents are now among her biggest supporters.
Elmamouny has been competing internationally for the last few years, and this latest success is certain to boost her profile further as she targets global honours.
Elmamouny: "No social barriers or hierarchy, just brothers and sisters in love with dance and music"
After her greatest victory to date, Elmamouny told WDSF about how she got into breaking just under a decade ago.
"For me it was spontaneous. I just starting breaking with my friends in the street. And the first time I did, like, a 'baby freeze', I fell in love with breaking."
She went into more detail in her previous interview with L'Observateur, saying, "I had friends who were breaking seriously and one day they asked me to join them. At first, my parents were not supportive. They thought it was strange, especially since breaking was not well known.
"Later, when I started winning competitions and battles, they were the ones who started to encourage me."
Only last month, Elmamouny held a 'Break-Fast Dance Workshop' during Ramadan in Casablanca. She believes breaking is for everyone and especially youngsters.
"I would say to other mothers and fathers to indulge their children more. Breaking is good because it channels the energy of young people. Studying is vital, but art and sport are also important."
Elmamouny was something of a rarity on the scene when she started and said it was "very difficult" to establish herself.
"I fought a lot in my early days because people had this idea that breaking was for boys only. I wanted to prove them wrong so I hung on," she recalled to the Royal Moroccan Federation of Aerobic Sports, Hip Hop Fitness and Assimilated Disciplines.
She considers equality part of the ethos of urban dance sports and particularly enjoys the "ease that we have to meet people from different backgrounds and the impression of being part of a big family".
She added, "There are no social barriers, no hierarchy, just brothers and sisters in love with dance and music. I also found feminist messages in it that touched me."
While she trains for between three and four hours per day, with over half that time dedicated to fitness and body conditioning, she also organises cyphers with friends.
Speaing to L'Observateur, she said, "Coming here allows me to break the rigidity of the training sessions. I meet my friends and we organise dance demonstrations."
"What I like the most is that within these walls there is no difference between girls and boys. We are all the same and equal."
Winning the 2019 Red Bull BC One Cypher in Morocco saw her go to the World Final in Mumbai that year.
That was her first major competition although the pandemic brought her promising international career to a temporary halt.
Elmamouny won that title again in 2022, earning a trip to New York City, and she has also competed in Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Japan.
In March, she won the Moroccan national title again before clinching the first continental crown in Rabat.
Now she is one of 16 B-Girls in with a chance of winning breaking's first Olympic title in Paris next year.