Amaiya Zafar, 16, was disqualified from her championship fight in November because she was wearing a hijab underneath her boxing headgear, and shorts and leggings under her singlet.

Her opponent, 15-year-old Aliyah Charbonier, didn’t have a problem with it. It was USA Boxing’s executive director who called the uniform violation a “safety issue.”

So, Zafar took the “loss,” but Charbonier did something amazing. She shared the championship belt with Zafar.

This, from the Washington Post:

“This girl comes up to me then and puts her belt in my lap and says, ‘This is yours. They disqualified you. You’re the true winner. This is unfair,’ ” Zafar recalled over the phone Tuesday morning. “Then we started hugging each other, and the owner [of the event] came and got me to make sure I got [a belt.]”

Charbonier said she felt she needed to do something.

“It’s just not right,” the 15-year-old from Clermont, Fla., said. “It’s not really a distraction for me what she’s wearing. She still had on gloves and headgear. I felt really bad for her. They didn’t give her a chance to fight. We tried to tell them that it was all right, but for safety purposes they say they need to have a visual of your arms. And yet they still have 18-year-olds fighting 20-somethings. It wasn’t right.”

What a way to step up in the face of adversity.