by Stuart Weir
Mujinga Kambundji
Mujinga Kambundji is 32, approaching 33. She has had a great career: twice European champion at 200 meters, twice European medalist at 100m, medalist at the 2019 Worlds, Olympic 100 metre finalist in Paris and Tokyo. Indoors three time medalist at European level including gold in 2023. Her greatest achievement was winning gold in the World Indoors in Belgrade 2022. She was in the outside lane, unfavored but she burst through to win in 6.96. But, at 32, were her best years behind her?
In the European indoors this year she ran 7.02 to finish second behind Zaynab Dosso who needed to run a national record and world leading time of 7.01to beat Mujinga. Her gracious comment afterwards was: “The goal was to get a medal but everyone wants the gold. I am happy with silver. It was a tough field and a good race. Every season is different so I am happy how this one went. 7.02 is a good time. I think I could have run faster, but I will have another chance”.
One thing we learned from both sisters is the importance of family. Rather than being full of her own achievement, Mujinga choose to talk about Ditaji, saying : “It was a successful championship for us. I am so proud of my sister. She did an amazing job. It makes me really proud to see her like that. My parents and my aunts are here supporting us. After the major events, we try to get together as a family when it is more calm, but not right after the championships”.
After a few days at home it was long-haul travel to Nanjing for the worlds. Not good enough to win in Europe but she became World Champion, ironically winning the worlds with a slower time than her silver medal time at the Europeans: 7.04 to 7.02. Her assessment was: “When I crossed the line I knew it was good, but I wasn’t sure it was good enough to win. My technique just felt off during the heats and semis, like it was not a lot of aggressiveness. So I was really pumped up and nervous for the final, but that helped. This was a lot like the Europeans. Zaynab was also coming from that, and I knew she was going to be fast. I knew it was going to be a good race, so I just had to focus on my race. This means a lot, for this title to come at this stage of my career. I see it with other sprinters, with the older sprinters, they are also motivating me a lot to see that they’re still running PRs, and running really fast at 35, 36 years old. It shows me that my best time can still be ahead of me. I’m still able to run really good. Every win is always good for the confidence. It shows me that we’re doing a lot of things right because not every year is the same. You can’t just take one recipe and do it every year. You always have to adapt to how you feel, so I’m really happy to see that my coach can feel what I need, and we can do what’s optimal for me.”
It was an unusual global sprint final with the top five places going to Europeans. There was only one American, Mikiah Brisco and she failed to reach the final. You can only beat those in the race and Mujinga Kambundju did just that.
