A teenage girl who was horrifically burned as a child — twice — then bullied at school because of her appearance and devastated at the loss of her father has rebuilt her life by becoming a top martial artist. Now she's embracing a new fight: helping her mother raise money for cancer treatment.
Dilara Sultan Arpaci won the silver medal in the European Muay Thai Cup in 2018 and the gold medal in 2019.The child of a Russian mother and a Turkish father, Arpaci bears scars from two different injuries. Most of her body was burned at age 4 when her dress caught fire after her twin brother started playing with a lighter. When she was 6 a pot of boiling water on the family stove was accidentally overturned, scalding the left side of her face.
Arpaci says that as a child she did not want to leave the house because of her burn scars. Other children mocked and bullied her, turning her into a frightened recluse. The loneliness made her irritable and aggressive, she says. Her mother encouraged her to try kickboxing to channel her intense emotions.
Dilara Sultan Arpaci shows the burn marks on her body. The Turkish athlete was bullied as a child because of the scars.After a two-year break, the Turkish athlete started again at age 12 and won the same tournament a second time, making her"Kick Boxing Champion of Turkey" in her age group.
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