Sarra Besbes

Sarra Besbes is a Tunisian épée fencer, born on 5 February 1989 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. ^{1 2} The English article describes her as a seven-time gold medallist at the African Fencing Championships. ³

Besbes was born into a sporting family: her father Ali is a former basketball player who became a physical education teacher, and her mother, Hayet Ben Ghazi, is a former foil fencer who became an international referee. ³ Her sisters Hala, Azza and Rim and her brother Ahmed Aziz are also fencers. ¹

At the 2011 World Championships in Catania, Besbes learned she would face an Israeli athlete in the qualification phase. On the instructions of the Tunisian Fencing Federation and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, as part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, she fenced the bout against Noam Mills completely passively, losing 0–5 rather than refusing the fight and incurring sanctions; she commented afterwards, "I did my duty." ³ The defeat worsened her seeding, and she lost her first elimination bout to the eventual champion, Li Na of China. ³

She qualified for London 2012 as Africa's top-ranked woman épée fencer, beat Luo Xiaojuan of China and Choi In-jeong of Korea, and lost the quarter-final to the eventual silver medallist Britta Heidemann of Germany, placing eighth. ³ In 2015 she won a World Cup event in Buenos Aires — the first World Cup win by a Tunisian fencer of either gender — and took bronze at the World Championships in Moscow. ³ At Rio 2016 she again reached the quarter-finals and placed fifth, and she also competed at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. ³ She later worked as a sports teacher at the Lycée Français Théodore Monod in Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi. ³

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