Nakiyemba eyes Olympic qualification despite financial hurdles
Sep 30, 2019
She is struggling for finances in order to compete in at least six other competitions before the year ends
Uganda's All Africa Games badminton bronze medalist Aisha Nakiyemba is determined not to relent in her pursuit of qualification to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Nakiyemba teamed up with Gladys Mbabazi in Morocco to win women doubles bronze, the first for Uganda in badminton last month.
Because of the few tournaments in Uganda and the region, she has found herself having to travel to various tournaments across the globe, to amass points in order to fulfil her dream.
Her latest outing was in India where she participated in the Maldives Future Series and in the Maldives International Challenge where she was beaten in the quarter-finals and the round of 64 by India's seed-4 Shrut Mundada and USA's Isabel Zhong in the two tournaments respectively.
Currently ranked 101 in the BWF World Rankings for Olympic 2020 Qualification, Nakiyemba must continue competing in more tournaments and get ahead of her immediate opponents from Africa.
Nigeria's Dorcas Ajoke and Egyptians Hosny Hadia and Hany Doha are ahead of her in the rankings in 67, 85 and 91st places respectively.
But the Ugandan is caught between a rock and a hard place as she is now sweating and struggling for finances in order to compete in at least six other competitions before the year ends.
"I need like sh20m to be able to compete in the Dubai international challenge, the Algeria international series, Pakistan international series, Zambia future series, Bostwana future series and the Cameroon International series," Nakiyemba said.
"To be able to raise in the rankings it actuary means I have to play every after two weeks because the rankings keep on changing after every competition.
"That is why I'm appealing to anyone who can assist to contact me on mobile phones; 0784869468 or 0701180254. Alternatively, they can use my accounts numbers; 1040100917915 in Equity Bank and or 9020508239 in Centenary Bank," Nakiyemba pleaded.
She said her trip to India where she had also gone to acquire more skills was tough where she had to forego meals and had to train on an empty stomach because of lack of enough funds.
"I can't manage to pay all these tournaments by myself; actually all my travel tickets are on credit and all my travels so far are close to sh22m and I'm now in arrears," Nakiyemba lamented.