Nanyondo qualifies for Rio de Janeiro Olympics
Nanyondo will represent the country at the summer Olympics to be staged in the coastal Brazil city of Rio de Janeiro
KAMPALA. To mark the magnitude of her feat, Winnie Nanyondo celebrated in a rare manner after winning the women’s 800m race at the Golden Spike Leiden Meet in Netherlands on Saturday.
She ran near the track in awe, threw her flowers in the air and maintained a glowing face on a day of personal glory.
The 2014 Commonwealth bronze medalist had just posted a season best time of two minutes and 57 microseconds to qualify for the Rio Olympics.
Irrespective, she didn’t praise herself first. “God is good,” Nanyondo told Daily Monitor via phone from the Dutch province yesterday.
And knowing the 22-year-old had failed the Beijing World Championships qualification test last year, this was more of a relief. “Now no stress,” she said.
Prior to this momentous feat, Nanyondo had run four races in Europe this season and hitting the Olympic qualification standard 2:01.00 over the two-lap race seemed in vain.
Her manager had expected this. “We knew she could easily run under the qualifying standard,” he said. “I think her problem was more mentally (the stress to qualify) than physically which is now gone.”
By the time the bell rang, Nanyondo was in the lead and went on to beat Belgian Renée Eykens (2:01.34) and Romanian Claudia Bobocea (2:01.49) to the top prize.
“Before the race, I had told myself not to wait for anyone and just go deliver.” she added.
She becomes the fifth female runner for the Rio trip, joining Stella Chesang, Juliet Chekwel, Peruth Chemutai and Adero Nyakisi. This is the joint-record highest gender tally in athletics for Uganda in Olympic history.
It is equal to 1988 when the quartet of Oliver Acii, Grace Buzu, Farida Kyakutema and Ruth Kyalisiima took part in the 4x100m relay at the Seoul Games. Jane Ajilo replaced Acii for the 4x400m relay. Also at the event in Leiden, Martin Kurong clocked 27:27.43 to finish second in men’s 10000m race.
The 21-year-old had also beaten the 25-lap Olympic standard (28:00.00).
IAAF GOLDEN SPIKE LEIDEN MEET
WOMEN’S 800M
1 Winnie Nanyondo (UGA) 2:00.57
2 Renée Eykens (BEL) 2:01.34
3 Claudia Bobocea (ROM) 2:01.49
MEN’S 800M
1 Ronald Musagala (UGA) 1:47.62
