Muzito wins 100m freestyle heat at the World Championships

Uganda’s Gloria Muzito clocked 56.55 to win her heat as she made her debut at the World Aquatics Championship in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday.

Swimming in heat six of nine, the US-based Florida State University’s swimmer beat Venuezela’s Carla Gonzalez and Mongolia’s Batbayar Enkhkhuslen who finished second, and third in the heat, which also had six other swimmers of different nationalities.

But her time was 1.36 short of qualifying her for the round of 16 where Italian Chiara Tarantino was the last to squeeze in after she clocked 54.87.

Muzito’s time was also 21 microseconds short of her personal best of 56.34 over the distance she registered at the Isca Open in December last year and 1.94 and 2.68 seconds short of the women’s Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT) (A Standard) and Olympic Consideration Time (B Standard), respectively, over the distance.

She finished 27th overall out of 84 participants.

Earlier Jesse Ssuubi Ssengozi, who also flew in from the US from the University of Chicago notched a person best of 24.41 in also winning heat three of seven in the men’s 50m butterfly events as he warmed up for the tougher races.

In that particular heat, he came first ahead of Qatar’s Mohamed Mahmoud and Panama’s Jeancarlo Harper who made 24.62 and 24.95 respectively; finishing 38th out of 67 overall.

On Wednesday Tendo Mukalazi also posted 52.63 from the men’s 100m freestyle heats which was a second short of the national record that he holds.

His time over that distance was 1.25 seconds short of the Olympic Standard B Qualifying time but he was placed 72nd out of the 108 participants from all the heats.

China’s Pan Zhanle topped the heats with a time of 47.73, which is within the Paris 2024 OQT and 4.90 seconds ahead of Mukalazi’s time.

The Ugandans will continue with their campaign on Friday with Mukalazi and Ssengonzi competing in the men’s 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly races respectively.

Muzito, Mukalazi, and Kirabo Namutebi will dive in on Friday and Saturday for the 50m fly and freestyle as well as the 50m breaststroke races while Ssengonzi has a 100m butterfly gig on Friday before the event ends on Sunday.

Earlier Swagia Mubiru and Atuhaire Ambala competed in the 5km Open Water competition but were not fit enough to finish within the FINA stipulated time whose last swimmer in the event was Namibia’s Brynne Kinnaaird who recorded 1:12:33.50 in finishing 57th out of the 62 entries.

Ambala also came in later after Georgia’s Davit Sikharulidze who finished last 72nd in 1:04:52.10.

The championship provides the Ugandans and a host of other swimmers from around the world the last chance to qualify for the Olympics on merit, over the 75 medal events that will be held.