(JULY 21) Undefeated featherweight fighter Sarah Mahfoud is the first IBF world champion from Denmark.  Once boxing does resume in Denmark, Sarah Mahfoud is primed to become a major star within the fast growing firmament of female boxing.

On February 1st this year Sarah Mahfoud (10-0, 3 KO’s) won the IBF’s interim world title at featherweight courtesy of a convincing points win against defending champion Brenda Carabajal of Argentina. The show was promoted by legendary Hall of Fame (IBHOF) fight promoter Mogens Palle and his daughter Bettina Palle, who runs the Danish Fight Night stable together with famous Danish former heavyweight fighter Brian Nielsen.

And now IBF, one of the major world organizations of boxing, confirms, that Sarah Mahfoud is IBF’s real champion in the featherweight division.

“Mr. Mogens Palle. We are happy to advise you that Sarah Mahfoud has been elevated to IBF Female Featherweight World Champion due to the fact, that Jennifer Han has relinquished her title,” says Carlos Ortiz Jr., Championship Chairman at IBF, in a written statement.

The former champion Jennifer Han from El Paso, Texas, USA had not defended her title since February 2018 due to a pregnancy and the birth of her first son. She was expected to return to either fight Sarah Mahfoud or relinquish her title, and she chose to do the latter.

Due to the inactivity of Han IBF first mandated an interim world title fight between Brenda Carabajal and Elena Gradinar. The winner Carabajal then moved on to fight Sarah Mahfoud, the number one contender, and Mahfoud captured the belt that night in Copenhagen, Denmark.

“It’s awesome that it has finally been decided who the real champion is. It could have been fun to take that fight against Jennifer Han, if she had chosen to return. But now she’s relinquishing the title, so now there is no doubt: I’m a true world champion in one of the major boxing organizations. The first ever Danish IBF world champion in history,” says Sarah Mahfoud in response to the decision.

Danish boxing has produced world champions in major organizations like WBA, WBC and WBO, but never before in IBF.

During the corona pandemic Sarah Mahfoud, who is both a boxer and a trainee nurse, volunteered as part of the temporary healthcare workforce at a hospital in Copenhagen in the fight against Covid-19.

Sarah Mahfoud, who is trained by heavyweight fighter Sherman “The Tank” Williams, was born in the Faroe Islands, a self-governing and geographically remote island chain located in the north Atlantic. Most of her life has been spent in Denmark. She enjoyed a successful amateur career, winning three Danish championships and twice being crowned Nordic champion. She also fought for Denmark at the 2012 World Amateur Championships in China.

In 2016 she became a bigger household name in Denmark after winning the Danish version of the TV program “Dancing With The Stars” and signed a contract with Mogens Palle. Based in a country with less than 6 million people Palle has produced an impressive number of European champions (26) plus world champions like Mikkel Kessler, Ayub Kalule, Johnny Bredahl, Jimmi Bredahl, Gert Bo Jacobsen, Magne Havnaa, Anita Christensen and now also Sarah Mahfoud.

Besides Sarah Mahfoud the new generation of talents and prospects from Denmark and the Danish Fight Night stable includes the names of Enock Poulsen, Oliver Meng, Ditlev Rossing, Jeppe Morell, Allan Mahfoud, Victor Ramon and more.