Namibian sprinter Christine Mboma won her first Commonwealth Games medal on Saturday night after finishing third in the women’s 200 metres (m) final at the Alexander Stadium.
The women’s 200m final was won by Jamaican’s Olympic Games gold medallist Elain Thompson-Herah while Nigeria’s Favour Ofili took the silver.
Thompson-Herah ran a new record of 22.02 seconds while Ofili did a time of 22.51 seconds and Mboma clocked 22.80 seconds.
In an interview with Nampa after the race, Mboma said she was happy with her performance.
“I just had a week to train before these games and winning a medal means a lot to me as I am representing my country just after a week of training,” she said.
Mboma added that before the games she had thoughts of withdrawing from the whole competition due to her injury, however after a week of training she felt it was more important to represent her country as well as to come and assess how far she has recovered.
“Some people might say I just won a bronze but this bronze medal means a lot to me, and the people supporting me plus my country because when I got injured a lot was going on in my life but I managed to overcome all that and focused on competing,” Mboma said.
The sprinter also stated that she has not fully recovered yet, and will take it one step at a time until she reaches full recovery.
“While competing here I could feel my muscles pulling but it’s not as painful as when I got injured. I am now going back home to continue with my recovery process,” she said adding that winning a medal in her maiden Commonwealth Games will always be a special memory for any athlete.
Meanwhile, Namibia’s 5000m runner Daniel Paulus finished 14th out of the 20 athletes that competed in the men’s 5000m run on Saturday night. Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo who won the 10 000m event earlier this week collected his second gold medal at the competition.
With only one day left for the games, Team Namibia is currently ranked 35th on the medal standing out of the 71 Commonwealth nations competing at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
