Uganda’s Namutebi bags silver in Africa Junior Championships
Setting records. Kirabo Namutebi competes at a past event. PHOTO/FILE/ISMAIL KEZAALA
What you need to know:
- In Ghana’s capital Accra, Namutebi was swimming in lane three as eventual winner and favourite Caitlin De Lange, 17, from South Africa took lane four.
Sixteen-year-old Ugandan swimmer Kirabo Namutebi Friday clocked 26.26 to win silver in the 50m freestyle event at the Africa Junior and Senior Championships in Ghana, taking her total haul at this level to four medals in two editions and six in three editions for her country.
"I am really happy to get silver. I gave the race all my best," the teenage 2020 Tokyo Olympian said after the race as she promised to "train and push to become even better."
In Ghana’s capital Accra, Namutebi was swimming in lane three as eventual winner and favourite Caitlin De Lange, 17, from South Africa took lane four.
De Lange clocked 26.18 but Uganda will still bask in Namutebi's new glory, personal best and national record as it has brought the only medal at this year's combined championship thus far.
Prior to shining light in yet another continental campaign for her East African nation, Namutebi had come into the race as defending champion from the 2019 edition in Tunisia where she clinched gold whilst swimming from the disadvantaged outer lane.
Her delightful coach, Kutashev Pavel, at the Fina Development Centre in Kazan - Russia, where the Dolphins swimmer is currently based on a swimming scholarship said: "What Kirabo has done to get silver, cutting off almost a quarter a second off her Olympics time (26.63) is a good result.
Medal hunt
Namutebi will quickly look at the tough luck she had endured in the junior category of this championship for future inspiration.
Despite posting personal bests (PB), she finished 5th in the 50m butterfly (29.78), 50m backstroke (32.35) and 100m freestyle (59.80), where she said she ‘‘would also have wanted to defend her podium position from two years ago.’’
The rules at the championship allow straight finals junior swimmers to participate in the senior finals if they record better times than what their older counterparts manage in the preliminaries.
And Namutebi tried to exploit that option for the 100m free but finished eighth in the final with a time of 1:01.17.
Her first quest to defend her 2019 heroics in Tunisia had Wednesday waned with an unexpected disqualification in the 50m breaststroke as her teammate Swagia Mubiru made 39.66.
Namutebi fought back to finish sixth in the 100m breaststroke in 1:20.01, albeit far from her 1:17.40 seed time as Mubiru managed a 1:24.14 PB.
Another sixth-place finish had come earlier in the mixed 4*100m freestyle relay which she swum with Mubiru, Joshua Lumonya and Steven Magera.
But her mental fortitude going into the 50m freestyle paid dividends.
