Qualified for the Olympics in Tokyo, Amjed Maafi will represent Tunisia in Greco-Roman wrestling. At 20, he approached summer with a double goal: to get Bac and win a medal at the Olympics.
Amjed Maafi welcomes us home in his home, in the family home, a nice gladiator physique, packed in a t-shirt a little too tight. On the living room table, he spread his medal collection. An incredible harvest that began four years ago. “I got this during my first participation in an African competition. It was in Morocco 2017. I won the silver medal. These were my first fights outside of Tunisia. After that I went to Nigeria where I won a gold medal. ”
He has chained the winners and logically composted his ticket to Tokyo during the qualifying tournament for the Africa-Oceania zone. The Tunisian struggle is going well, nine other warriors in the country has qualified for the Olympics, four women and five men.
Calm and thoughtful, Amjed Maafi has big ambitions for this summer: “It’s clear, I always want to move forward, and why not win an Olympic medal in Tokyo, if God wills, and if it does not happen. Not in Tokyo will it maybe be in Paris 2024. ”He started the fight by wanting to follow in his big brother’s footsteps and started going to the gym in his neighborhood very early.
Many victims to reach the top level
In his modest house in the city of Ettadhamen, a western suburb of Tunis, Najwa, his mother, walks back and forth in the kitchen where the master’s lunch is simmering. “He eats everything, it’s not difficult. Today I made pasta with chicken, explains the little woman whose djellaba sparkles with pearls and rhinestones. “I eat normally, but watch my weight,” explains Amjed Maafi. The scale is the most important accessory in our sport. “The wrestler smiles, because at the moment he manages to keep the line. He has not crossed the fatal barrier of 77 kilos in his class.
At home, surrounded by his family, Amjed Maafi allows himself some sprains from the very strict diet to which he is bound: “There are things you can not eat at the gym, e.g. On the weekends I can afford it, there are things I miss. At the end of the week, he finds his family: his mother, his little sister, his big brother and his father.
To reach the top level, he had to make many sacrifices and grow faster than other children. His mother remembers: “When he was still in elementary school, he would go out at 5 pm and go to the training center. In the winter, in the rain, he sometimes came home at 23.00. By tram. He had to make several changes. “But Amjed Maafi has never put the sport above academic success, on the contrary, he managed to unite the two. Before participating in the Olympics in Japan, he passed his Bac in Tunisia.
A great ability to concentrate
A few days before the tests, Achraf Tlili, professor of mathematics, gave him his last support lessons in June. “Amjed’s peculiarity is that he has a great ability to concentrate, more than anyone else. The other students, and he knows the discipline. It was this that made him able to excel in his field.” At this point, the teacher is confident, although he admits that “Amjed Maafi still has gaps.” But that is not what stopped him from graduating.The wrestler won once again.
In early July, in Facebook status, he shares his joy at being “adopted”. With his baccalaureate in hand, Amjed Maafi is already looking further and now wants to enroll in the Higher Institute of Sport and Physical Education, INEPS, with one goal: to go to a master’s degree to secure his professional future.
An obligation to succeed for those who grew up in Ettadhamen
A full head and a physique of a Greek statue, Amjed Maafi confirms maxim, a healthy mind in a healthy body. But with Ettadhamen’s children, it’s not just a hacked saying, he knows he has a duty to succeed. The city has 84,000 inhabitants. This former district of Tunis, marginalized and densely populated, consists of informal settlements that have been gradually integrated into urban areas. In the city, public services have never been able to catch up and the infrastructure is failing. The area has one of the highest poverty rates in Greater Tunis, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS), even though it is the richest region in the country.
The social divide is enormous, driven by stereotypes and “poverty phobia” that tend to present Ettadhamen as a beheading. “What makes me angry is that the city has given many champions to Tunisia and we only talk about what is wrong,” condemns Amjed Maafi. It damages the image of this neighborhood. It’s okay to point fingers at problems, but you also need to talk about positive things. I would like to say that in Ettadhamen there is everything, many fantastic athletes, artists and young people who want to study and work. “
Amjed Maafi will therefore be able to celebrate his Bac in Tokyo, on the podium, with his country’s national anthem in the background, it would be grandiose.
►To read: Tokyo Olympics: Elena Zdrokova, the shooting star of Russian rugby
.
