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Chemutai on cusp of historic double
Chemutai could ink her name in history. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
Before Chemutai’s historic triumph at Tokyo’s National Stadium on August 4, 2021, Dorcus Inzikuru was Uganda’s track and field queen.
Ugandan athletes lack the consistency to dominate the world stage. It’s what puts Joshua Cheptegei in a class of no peers. But there’s a slim girl from Bukwo who may crawl onto the environs of this territory of unmatched greatness if she conquers the world again tonight.
She is Peruth Chemutai, the reigning Olympic champion, in the 3000m Steeplechase. She is Uganda’s first female Olympic medalist, who wants to repeat her feat, a second gold—a record that may take half a century to match.
Tough history
Before Chemutai’s historic triumph at Tokyo’s National Stadium on August 4, 2021, Dorcus Inzikuru was Uganda’s track and field queen. She stunned the world in Helsinki in 2005, in the 3000m Steeplechase final, the first time women ran that race at the World Championship.
In 9:18.24 minutes, a championship record, she beat Russian Yekaterina Volkova and Kenyan Jeruto Kiptum, the same opponents she had beaten in Heat Three of the semifinal.
Inzikuru reproduced her magic with gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, in 9:19.51 minutes, a Games record, beating three Australians on home track.
But by 2007, when Inzikuru was supposed to defend her world title in Daegu, South Korea, she did not show up, partly due to illness and conceiving her first child.
She bounced back in 2009 but never defended her Commonwealth title at Delhi 2010, where three Kenyans swept the podium.
Inzikuru fought on and qualified for her first Olympics, in London 2012, but the Arua Gazelle was not fast enough to make the final. Chapter closed.
Catherine Webombesa, Justine Bayiga, Grace Birungi and Annet Negesa, whose career was buried by the hormonal abnormalities and controversies, sound familiar but with little success.
Then came Stella Chesang, another prospect from Eastern Uganda, who won 10,000m gold at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, 12 years since Inzikuru.
Then Halima Nakaayi, the 800m World Champion in 2019. But since that unlikely victory, her form slumped, partly due to injury.
In eight events, she has only won bronze at the 2021 World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia and silver at the delayed 2023 African Games in Accra, Ghana.
The rest have been distant finishes, including that eighth-place at the 2023 World Championships Budapest, Hungary and failure to advance from the heats in Paris.
Revival
After ending Uganda’s 64-year wait for an Olympic queen, Chemutai battled the demons that knocked her elders off the track.
At some point, just returning to the Olympics looked improbable. After all besides, Mary Musoke, and Nakaayi, not many Ugandan women have appeared at two Olympic editions.
Barely three weeks after her Olympic conquest, Chemutai finished seventh at the Prefontaine Classic, in Eugene, Oregon.
Then injuries and illness set in. And in 17 attempts since Tokyo, she never hit her target of running under nine minutes.
But finally, she did it at the Wanda Diamond League in Eugene, Oregon in May, 2024, winning the 3000m Steeplechase in 8:55:09 minutes.
Her Dutch coach Addy Ruiter called it “her best race ever after Tokyo.”
And Chemutai warned skeptics: “I’m going back to train for Paris (Olympics) because I need to defend my title.”
In the Paris 2024 semifinals on Sunday morning, she effortlessly ran the best time, 3.05 seconds better than world record holder Beatrice Chepkoech—the Kenyan who had beaten Chemutai 16 times until Oregon 2024.
Chepkoech is a 2019 world champion, a silver medalist at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, looking for her first Olympic medal. Chemutai must be at her best to retain her coveted crown.
And if she does she will have set the bar taller than the Eiffel Tower for many Ugandan women.
