Namibia’s Tokyo Olympics silver medallist Christine Mboma is gunning for two more accolades after she made it to the nomination lists of World Athletics Awards as well as the Athletics Weekly Magazine Awards.
For the 2021 edition of World Athletics Awards, the 18-year-old Namibian sprinter is among five nominees shortlisted for the Female Rising Star of the Year Award, which recognises this year’s best U/20 athlete.
The category will focus on the various incredible performances witnessed at this year’s U/20 World Athletics Championships, held in Nairobi; the Tokyo Olympic Games, as well as other events around the world, such as the Diamond League and other meetings.
Mboma, who is the reigning U/20 world and Diamond League 200m champion, will go up against America’s Athing Mu, who is the Tokyo Olympics 800m and 4x400m champion, world U/20 indoor 800m record holder as well as the North American U/20 record holder in the 400m and 800m events.
Ethiopia’s world U/20 3 000m steeplechase silver medallist Zerfe Wondemagegn and Finland’s world U/20 hammer throw champion Silja Kosonen and Britain’s Tokyo Olympics 800m silver medallist and Diamond League and European indoor 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson are all in contention for the coveted Female Rising Star of the Year accolade.
The winner of the 2021 Female Rising Star of the Year award will be selected by an international panel of experts and will be announced at the awards ceremony on 1 December.
Meanwhile, the U/20 world record-holding Namibian teen has also been nominated and shortlisted for the International Junior Female Athlete of the Year for next month’s Athletics Weekly Magazine Awards.
She will be going up against Swedish triple jumper Maja Askag, Finnish hammer thrower Silja Kosonen, Jamaican sprinter Briana Williams, Finnish heptathlon champion Saga Vanninen as well as Mu.
Mboma dominated the recent Namibia Annual Sport Awards (NASA) when she won the prestigious MTC/NASA Sports Star of the Year award, the MTC/NASA Junior Sportswoman of the Year accolade and the highly-coveted MTC/NASA Sportswoman of the Year award, which saw her walking away with N$350 000 in total prize money.
She made history when she claimed silver in the 200m in Tokyo after being forced to drop down from her preferred 400m due to a World Athletics ruling, as she was found to have elevated natural levels of testosterone.
Despite changing events, after setting the fastest 400m time in the world of the year to date in June this year, Mboma ended the season on a high note.
- ohembapu@nepc.com.na