Uganda's Emong wins gold, conquers the world
New world champion. Emong (R) has established himself as one of Uganda’s greatest ever para-athletes. COURTESY PHOTO
KAMPALA. Uganda's 2016 Paralympic silver medallist David Emong will from now on be referred to as 2017 world champion after winning gold in the T46 1500m race at the World Para Athletics Championship in London.
On Saturday night, Emong raced from behind to run his personal best ever time of 3:58:36 minutes to beat his arch-rival and 2016 Olympic champion Samir Nouioua of Algeria who finished second on 3:58:78 minutes.
Bulgarian Hrystian Stoyanov, who was also in front of Emong with 100 metres to go, finished third with a personal best time of 3:58:94 minutes.
Emong, who won Uganda’s first Paralympics silver medal at Rio 2016, has also won Uganda’s first gold medal at the World Para Athletics on his second appearance. It is also his first gold in a major para event.
He is the only athlete who represented Uganda after his would-be teammates: Christine Akullo, Sam Mubajje and Al-Bashir Bwaga were dropped for lack of facilitation.
