Youth Olympic Games: Ugandans out to make a mark

By Teddy Nakanjakko in Nanjing China

Sunday’s fixtures for Ugandan participants

Badminton at 9:00am (4:00am Ugandan time)

Rowing  at 10:00am (5:00am Ugandan time)

Table Tennis  at 10:00am (5:00am Ugandan time)

Uganda’s trio of Daniel Ssebunya Mihigo (badminton), Florence Seera (table tennis) and Constance Mbabu (rowing) will be out to make a mark when they compete on Sunday at the 2nd Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China. 

The games are opening Saturday night at the Nanjing Sports Centre Stadium by the Chinese, a ceremony to be attended by Chinese Presidenti  Xi Jinping.

International Olympic Committee boss Thomas Batch will also be present at the grand opening of the event that will see 13 days of competition in 24 games by 3,787 athletes from 204 nations.

Ssebunya is Uganda’s first competitor at the games and is grouped with Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama (seed five), Luis Enrique Penalver Pereira of Spain and Krzystof Jakowczuk Poland who is representing Poland.

He has said he is optimistic that he will go past the group stages of the men’s singles at the Nanjing Sports Institute Gymnasium.

Meanwhile Constance Mbabu will also take to the waters of the Xuanwu at the Nanjing Rowing Canoeing School for the Rowing junior Women’s Single sculls. She is in heat two with Miharu Takashima (Japan), Akossiwa Ayivon (Togo), Alejandra Alonso (Paraguay), Hao Thi Cao (Vietnam) and Daniella du Toit (Zimbabwe).

In table tennis, seed 30 Florence Seera, at stage one of the women’s singles to be played on the basis of round robbing system, is grouped with  seed one  Kem Dooi Hoi from Hongkong, Kristyna Stefvcova (Czech Republic) and Gremlis Arvelo (Venezuela). The top two players will advance to the next stage from all the eight groups.

The Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games, which will be held from 16 to 28 August in Nanjing, uses the slogan of "Share the Games, Share our Dreams".

 At the last games that were held in Singapore four years back, Uganda got one medal – bronze – courtesy of Zacharia Kiprotich in the boys’ 2000m Steeplechase.