Ugandan athletes arrive in Paris ready for track and field events

The first Ugandan athletes arrived in Paris on Monday to get their 2024 Paris Olympics underway.

Uganda’s biggest hope for medals is once again from the golden sport of the country, athletics just like it was in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Martin Magengo Kiprotich, who will compete in the 10000m final alongside Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo, touched down in France early morning on Monday ready to shine again for the country.

Joy Cheptoyek, Esther Chebet, and Belinda Chemutai who will compete in the 5000m women’s race were also part of the cast which was followed by Cheptegei and Kiplimo who won a combined three medals in Tokyo.

The seven athletes will be in action at the Olympic Stadium on August 5 with Cheptegei eager to add to his rich resume which includes seven global gold medals in an international career spanning a decade.

He is particularly keen on winning gold before he switches from the track to the marathon just like Kiplimo who harbours the same ambitions.

Ugandan rower Kathleen Noble was the first to test competition on her second Olympic Games outing with a fifth-place finish in heat one of the Women’s Single Sculls event at the National Olympic Nautical Stadium of lle-de-France in Vaires-sur-Marne on Saturday.

The result was a replica of her debut performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan where she finished in the same position in heat 2 of the same event.

She clocked 8:08.90 over the 2000m distance behind Australia’s Tara Rigney (7:30.71), Spain’s Virginia Diaz Rivas (7:37.30), South Africa’s Paige Badenhorst (7:39.19), and Islamic Republic of Iran’s Fatemeh Mojallaltopraghghale (8:01.30) who finished first, second, third and fourth respectively.

She missed out on a quarter-final place once again and neither could she win her semifinal E/F repechage on Sunday. She was again second best, like in Tokyo behind Algeria’s Benchadli Nihed who won the heat one.

“I knew she was faster than me from the heat but I was hoping I could push her longer so we stayed together until the halfway mark until she just broke away from me which left me a bit discouraged; I know it wasn’t my fastest race but I feel I could have held her longer but it is sort of motivating me for the rest of the event to try and go out there and be more aggressive,” Noble said.

Noble had another event yesterday that would determine her final placement at this year’s games.

Team Uganda is sponsored to the games by the government of Uganda through the NCS with additional support from Plascon, Sanlam Insurance, and Nile Special.