In one region of Senegal, girls can become wrestlers — and win. But only until marriage

MLOMP, Senegal (AP) — It’s almost dusk, and the West African heat is finally faltering. In Mlomp, a village in southern Senegal, dozens of teenagers in colorful jerseys are throwing each other to the ground to the rhythm of Afrobeats against a backdrop of palm trees.

It's a common sight across Senegal, where wrestling is a national sport and wrestlers are celebrated like rock stars. The local variation of wrestling, called laamb in Wolof, one of the national languages, has been part of village life for centuries. Senegalese wrestle for entertainment and to celebrate special occasions. The professional version of the sport draws thousands to stadiums and can be a catapult to international stardom.

But in most of the country, wrestling remains off-limits for women.

There is one exception. In the Casamance region, home to the Jola ethnic group, women traditionally wrestle alongside men. At a recent training session in Mlomp, most teenagers on the sandy ground were girls.

“It's in our blood,” said coach Isabelle Sambou, 43, a two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion. “In our village, girls wrestle. My mum was a wrestler, my aunts were wrestlers.”

But once Jola women marry, they are expected to stop practicing and devote themselves to family life, considered the main duty of Senegalese women regardless of ethnicity or religion.

Sambou's aunt, Awa Sy, now in her 80s, was the village champion in her youth, and said she would even take down some men.

“I liked wrestling because it made me feel strong,” she said, standing outside her house nestled between rice fields and mangroves. “I stopped when I got married." She didn't question it at the time.

That hasn't been the case for her niece, who, despite her humble demeanor and small size, exudes strength and determination. She defied many barriers to become a professional athlete.

As a teenager, Sambou was noticed by a professional wrestling coach at a competition during the annual Festival of the King of Oussouye, one of the few events accessible to women. The coach suggested that she try Olympic wrestling, which has a female national team. But she only agreed after her older brother convinced her to do it.

Wrestling brought Sambou, who did not finish primary school, to the Olympic Games in London and Rio de Janeiro, where she placed outside the medal contenders. But being a successful professional female athlete in a conservative society comes with a price.

“If you are a female wrestler, people are going to make fun of you,” Sambou said, recalling her experiences in parts of Senegal beyond her home region. “When I walked around in shorts, people were saying: ‘Look, is it a woman or is it a boy?’"

Others claimed that her body would change and she would no longer look like a woman.

Such things can “get to your head,” Sambou said. “But I tell myself: They don’t know what they are talking about. It’s in my blood, and it brought me where I am today.”

In 2016, facing her mid-30s, she decided to retire from professional sport and move back to her village.

“I thought it was the time to stop and think of something else, maybe find a job, start a family," she said. “But that hasn't happened so far.”

Instead, she focused on finding “future Isabelles.” After not fulfilling her dream of winning an Olympic medal, she hopes a girl she coaches can achieve that.

That mission has been complicated by the lack of resources. Female sport is often underfunded, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Around Sambou's village, there are no gyms where girls can do strength training. They don't have the special shoes used in Olympic wrestling, and instead train barefoot. They don't have mats, so they make do with sandy grounds.

And yet, at Africa’s youth championship in wrestling held in June in Senegal's capital, Dakar, Sambou’s students won 10 medals, including six golds.

“Despite everything, they did magnificent work,” she said.

She has received little in return. Senegal has no pension system for retired professional athletes. Her lack of formal education complicates her career as a coach. She helps to coach the national wrestling team, both men and women, but on a voluntary basis. To get by, she works in a small shop and cleans people's houses.

“I gave everything to wrestling, to my country,” she said. “Now I don’t have anything. I don't even have my own house. It hurts a bit.”

She listed the countries she has visited, including the United States and Switzerland, while sitting outside the home she shares with relatives. Her bedroom is decorated with a picture of Virgin Mary and posters celebrating her participation in championships — the only sign of her glorious past.

“It's difficult to be a professional athlete. You have to leave everything behind," she said. “And then you stop, and you come back here and you sit, without anything to do.”

But times are changing, and so is the perception of women in Senegalese society. These days, parents seek out Sambou and ask her to coach their children, regardless of their gender, even if it's still for free.

Sambou's 17-year-old niece, Mame Marie Sambou, recently won a gold medal at the youth championship in Dakar. Her dream is to become a professional wrestler and compete internationally. The big test will come in two years when Senegal hosts the Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic event ever organized on African soil.

“It's my aunt who encouraged me to start wrestling,” she said. “When I started, many people were saying they have never seen a girl wrestle. But I never listened to them. I want to be like her."

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Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, plays with children at her house in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, walk past tall trees around her house in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, prepares her room in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, cleans a mirror inside her room in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, right, talks with her aunt Awa Sy, a former wrestler, in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Young women coached by Isabelle Sambou, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, wait before a wrestling training in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, back to camera, speaks to young women before a wrestling training in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, center, explains moves to young women during a wrestling training, in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, left, speaks to young women during a wrestling training in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, left, explains a move during a wrestling training in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

Coach Isabelle Sambou, 43 years old, rear, two-time Olympian and nine-time African wrestling champion, explains a move to a young woman during a wrestling training in Mlomp, southern Senegal, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Sylvain Cherkaoui)

NEWLAND, N.C. (AP) — The Cartner family had known since last year that one of their farm’s Christmas trees would be headed to the White House this winter.

But then Hurricane Helene struck, unleashing a deadly deluge across western North Carolina, including Avery County, where Cartner’s Christmas Tree Farm has stood for decades. Though the farm lost thousands of trees to a mudslide, many more survived, including a 20-foot conical tree that dwarfs most of the others on the sprawling farm.

That one will soon be cut down, lifted by a crane and put on a truck bound for the nation's capital.

“We wanted to really be an uplifting symbol for the other farmers and other people in western North Carolina that have experienced so many losses," said Sam Cartner Jr., one of three brothers who owns the farm.

From the back of the farm property, where the White House tree is located, it's hard to see the extent of Helene's damage. Countless rows of dark green trees stand in formation, contrasting against the lighter, mossy green shade of the rolling hills. It's mostly quiet, aside from chirping birds and rustling leaves.

As Cartner ventures back to the front of the property in his SUV, the damage from Helene comes into view. A section of one of the grassy hills looks like it was clawed out to expose the brown earth beneath it — the aftermath of a mudslide that took out between 5,000 to 6,000 trees, Cartner said. Luckily, those trees were smaller and not market-size, meaning it wasn't an immediate problem for this harvest season, he said.

Culverts and gullies on the property were also washed out from the storm, making immediate access to certain parts of the farm treacherous. It took a few weeks to fill in the dirt roads twisting through the farm, Cartner said, but it could have been much worse.

“We're looking forward to a relatively normal harvest,” Cartner said. “Others will have a much harder time.”

The biggest challenge for Christmas tree farmers across western North Carolina has been fixing infrastructure on their property, including roads, said Jennifer Greene, North Carolina Christmas Tree Association executive director. Despite tree losses on some farms, Greene said farmers across the region — who harvest between 4-5 million Christmas trees annually — are persevering. She doesn't anticipate Helene's damage drastically affecting this harvest season, but it's still uncertain how the devastation will affect future seasons.

“They're resourceful, and you know, so they're going to find a way, you know, to make it happen,” Greene said of the area's Christmas tree farmers. “I mean, they have to.”

Cartner's parents, Sam and Margaret Cartner, founded the farm in 1959, where they grew Fraser firs, a tree species indigenous to the Appalachians. They later passed the farm on to Cartner Jr. and his two brothers.

The farm started off small, raising cows, cabbage and beans alongside the Fraser firs, Cartner said. The family initially planted their trees on the steepest field because they didn't want to use up their best land for them, Cartner said.

Now, Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm has grown to about 500 planted acres of land. Most of the farm’s business is selling wholesale to independent garden centers and stores around the country.

Their staffing operation is also much larger, as the farm employs temporary workers from Mexico to continue the year-round duties of maintaining the land, such as trimming trees. The task in recent days has been loading trees of various sizes into trailers ready to ship.

“We say we've touched a tree over 100 times by the time it gets to the consumer, and that's all manual labor,” Cartner said.

All of that work led to Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm being named the 2024 grand champion at the National Christmas Tree Association's contest. Winning the competition traditionally means the champion will supply the White House's official Christmas tree that year.

The visit to Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm by White House staff was initially delayed because of damaged roads, Greene said. When the staff made their selection in late October, they adorned their tree of choice with a red, white and blue ribbon that was larger than a basketball, Cartner said.

The selected tree is about 25 years old and weighs between 400 to 500 pounds (180 to 230 kilograms) — so heavy that a crane will be brought in to bring the tree to its transport truck ahead of its travels to Washington. Its “wonderful verdant color” and short limbs were just a few reasons Cartner listed off that may have drawn White House staff to the tree, in addition to meeting certain size requirements for display.

Cartner and his family will present the tree to First Lady Jill Biden in front of the White House. Then, Cartner said they plan to return in December to see it decorated in the White House's Blue Room.

While the buzz about the White House Christmas tree has been exciting, Cartner said he will be “glad to have all this behind us.” It's been a tough year because of Helene, and harvest season is already difficult enough as is, he said.

“You've got to cut and ship that number of trees in two to three weeks, you put a hurricane on top of that, White House tree and all the activities, it gets almost overwhelming,” he said.

And work has already begun for next year. The farm has some obstacles to overcome, including finding places to buy seedlings after Helene devastated some greenhouses. There's also paperwork to fill out for workers to return to the farm next season, as well as several orders to make for fertilizer and insecticide.

It's a large-scale operation that has come a long way from when Cartner's parents started it. While his parents wouldn't have liked all the attention the farm has received, Cartner said they would be proud that they were representing western North Carolina during a time of hardship for many after Helene.

“They would want this tree to represent the faith, and hope, and love, and joy and family and generosity, all those good things of mankind that we need to stop and recognize,” he said.

The official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, is seen at the Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Sam Cartner Jr., co-owner of Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, measures the official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Sam Cartner Jr., co-owner of Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, measures the official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Sam Cartner Jr., co-owner of Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, poses for a photo next to the official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Sam Cartner Jr., co-owner of Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, shows the official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Sam Cartner Jr., co-owner of Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, poses for a photo next to the official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

The official White House Christmas tree, a 20-foot Fraser fir, is seen at the Cartner's Christmas Tree Farm, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Newland, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)