Few have grappled with life like Long Beach\u2019s national champion wrestler, Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old, University of North Carolina-bound prodigy almost died as a little 6-year-old boy when a swarm of chimpanzees viciously attacked him in his native Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was with my family, and they came out of nowhere,\u201d he told The Post days after winning the National High School Coaches Association title at 123 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything happened pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
The beasts killed both his brother and cousin, and Sibomana-Rodriguez was left extremely disfigured. The primates mauled his face, bit off his left middle finger, part of his right ear, destroyed a chunk of his left forearm and left other scars across the poor child\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had about 16 surgeries now,\u201d added Sibomana-Rodriguez, who speaks softly due to lasting damage around his mouth.<\/p>\n
Life in Africa was hard enough before the tragedy, as his impoverished family already struggled to make ends meet. Things only got worse after becoming physically deformed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was sent out to the street to beg for money, to bring money into his house,\u201d said Long Beach assistant wrestling coach Miguel Rodriguez, Dunia\u2019s adoptive father.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are some of the things that he had to do as a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sibomana-Rodriguez came to America for reconstructive surgeries a few months after the harrowing incident and lived with foster families both on Long Island and in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez poses for a portrait inside the wrestling room of Long Beach Middle School on April 1, 2026. Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of just had to go with the flow,\u201d said Sibomana-Rodriguez, whose birth parents have since died.
As if he wasn\u2019t different enough, the young immigrant knew only his native language, Swahili, when he first came to America.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took a little while to fit in, meet people and get people to like me,\u201d Sibomana-Rodriguez admitted.
That all changed one fateful day on the South Shore over a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u2018Became best friends\u2019<\/p>\n
Sibomana-Rodriguez came to Long Beach as part of a program run by the local shop Skudin Surf, which gets kids with physical and cognitive disabilities into the water.<\/p>\n
It was the first time he splashed in the ocean.<\/p>\n
Miguel and his 2018 state champion heavyweight son, Elijah, were working at a deli when a family friend told them that Sibomana-Rodriguez was down at the shore.<\/p>\n
The duo at the time was looking after another young wrestler, Isaiah Bird, who was born without legs and defied the odds to succeed on the mat.<\/p>\n
They were all eager to meet Sibomana-Rodriguez after hearing of his plight.<\/p>\n
Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez does his signature back flip. Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIsaiah pointed to his face and said, \u2018What happened to your face?\u2019 Dunia pointed to where his legs would be and said, \u2018What happened to your legs?\u2019\u200a\u201d Elijah recalled. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey started playing. They went to the beach. They went surfing together, and we became friends after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rodriguez clan officially adopted Sibomana-Rodriguez when he was in middle school, and he has thrived in the family sport since fourth grade.<\/p>\n
\u2018Received a lot of love\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though I didn\u2019t know much about it, wrestling was just the right one for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sibomana-Rodriguez made the Marines varsity roster as an eighth grader and has since won five Nassau County titles and three state championships on top of his recent national achievement, which he said \u201cmeant a lot\u201d in his final year of high school after placing second in 11th grade. <\/p>\n
He committed to UNC as a junior and was just named county wrestler of the year for the second year in a row this week.<\/p>\n
Dunia Sibomana (center) with his adopted family Miguel Rodriguez (left) and Elijah Rodriguez (right). Heather Khalifa for New York Post<\/p>\n
\u201cThey say what makes a champion is what is done when no one is looking. He is a true testament of that,\u201d Elijah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the kind of kid that wakes up in the morning and does his workouts .\u2009.\u2009. is putting in the extra work, not because anyone told him to, but because he knows what it takes to be at the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for Long Beach to love Sibomana-Rodriguez, not just as an athlete but as a person, too.
\u201cIt\u2019s a very small town. It\u2019s a very loving town,\u201d Miguel said. \u201cSo wherever he went .\u2009.\u2009. he received a lot of love, a lot of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
All the compassion and success gave the 5-foot-1 champ a true sense of self and happiness \u2014 he\u2019s known to do backflips after winning a match \u2014 from an early age.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe started just walking around like a superstar. He\u2019s walking around saying hi to everyone, chest tall, confident, and, regardless of the fact that he was a little kid who looked a little bit different than everyone else,\u201d Elijah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just out there having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A blessing\u2019<\/p>\n
Sibomana-Rodriguez also went from being held back a year in second grade while learning English to a champion in the classroom, where faculty and locals are also rooting for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have a favorite subject; he has favorite teachers who make hard classes his favorite classes .\u2009.\u2009. he\u2019s got a teacher who makes him love math,\u201d said Miguel.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made the high honor roll the first and second semester of his senior year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunia Sibomana from Long Beach wrestles Cooper Merli from New York Military Academy in the 118-pound finals at the 2026 Eastern States Classic Wrestling Tournamant at the Impact Athletic Center in Clifton Park on Jan. 10, 2026. John Meore\/The Journal News \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Along with making the Olympics one day, Sibomana-Rodriguez dreams of working in finance after school and perhaps on Wall Street.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s become an inspiration to fellow Long Beach wrestlers, such as his grappling partner, 10th-grader Ethan Andreula.<\/p>\n
\u201cDunia helps push me, beats me up sometimes,\u201d said Andreula, who placed fourth in nationals this year.
\u201cSeeing him succeed on the highest levels makes me feel happy,\u201d added Andreula.<\/p>\n
Sibomana-Rodriguez and Elijah also coach youth wrestlers in Long Beach along with their dad, paying it forward to the next generation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI try my best to be a good role model for all of them and do the right thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd make sure they\u2019re doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the surf and sushi-loving Long Island teen faces his next big challenge \u2014 being away from the home he\u2019s so deeply fallen in love with while at Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be hard to get used to being away from my family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no challenge Sibomana-Rodriguez can\u2019t rise to.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of kid who ran the New York City Marathon for fun in 2021,\u201d laughed Elijah.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that God does things for a reason, and when things are meant to be, they\u2019re just meant to be,\u201d said Miguel.<\/p>\n
\u201cDunia coming right to Long Beach out of any place in this country or the world, it was just a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few have grappled with life like Long Beach\u2019s national champion wrestler, Dunia Sibomana-Rodriguez. The 18-year-old, University of North…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2044,15251,131,133,132,2890,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-249933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-high-schools","10":"tag-long-beach","11":"tag-long-beach-headlines","12":"tag-long-beach-news","13":"tag-long-island","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}