Three Uganda Para athletes qualify for Tokyo Olympics

Mar 02, 2020

"We just need more support from the sponsors, government and well-wishers in the next qualifiers before May, to qualify more...”

PARA SPORT

The Uganda Paralympic Committee hopes to qualify more athletes to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after a successful outing at the All Africa Paralympic Games in Morocco that ended on Sunday.

Uganda had three of its athletes; David Emong, Peace Oroma and Monica Ilalo qualifying for the games and the championship having been just one of the qualifying events, there is hope that more can qualify through other qualifying events, according to team coach Jemson Ssenkungu.

"It was all smiles as our athletes qualified on top of the ten medals that the team collected (3gold, 3sliver and 3bronze). We just need more support from the sponsors, government and well-wishers in the next qualifiers before May, to qualify more," Ssenkungu stated.

World Para Athletics Champion David Emong is among those that qualified having picked silver in the 1500m Men T37-38-46 race where he made 3:58.43 to finish second behind Algeria's Samir Nouioua who picked gold in 3:56.70.

Peace Oroma was the other star for Uganda, winning gold and bronze in the 100m T-13-T37 category and the 200m T-12-13-37 race where she made 14.85 and 29.48 in both races respectively.

Competing in the T-54 category, Richard Ocira was also good for silver in the 100m and 5000m races where he clocked 19.47 and 18: 51.07 respectively. He also picked bronze in the 800m race in a time of 2:44.67.

Monica Ilalo (gold in the T-11-T12), Fred Masisa (silver in the T-11), and Sam Mubaje (bronze in the 100m T-46-47) where the other Uganda athletes that won medals from the three-day championship.

Al Bashir Bwaga, Abdu Karim Lubega, Alex Lagu, and Wilfred Ocen, are the other athletes that travelled.

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