Much-changed Kukundakwe sets time targets for Paris

“Without swimming, I would not be where I am today,” para-swimmer Husnah Kukundakwe said as a keynote speaker at Unesco’s International Disability Inclusion Conference in Paris, France on Wednesday.

The conference is a ministerial forum, whose main theme of discussion was harnessing the transformational impact of para-sport.

Kukundakwe, who was born without the lower right hand while her left hand has only three complete fingers, retold her popular story of how she broke out at three and “did not realize until I was five that I was disabled.”

“People would whisper, point and sometimes laugh at my hand. But when I was in the water, I was free because the water does not stop you from entering it. I felt that water was a safe space for me.”

“When starting out,” Kukundakwe recalls, “I was swapped out of a race for someone else. That hit me hard and I left swimming for a while. I tried other sports but I felt, it was swimming that I loved and took it more seriously.”

The journey

She did. First, she joined club swimming and then started a classification journey in 2018 that took her first to Nairobi and then to Singapore. She has competed at various World Championships and Series. She earned Uganda its first international para-swimming medals at the Lignano Sabbiadoro World Series and also won six medals at the Konya 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games in Turkey.

But the pinnacle of her career came in August 2021 when she became the youngest athlete to swim at the Paralympics – at just 14.

“It was history for Uganda and for the Paralympics. Perceptions have changed too. I am not seen as a disabled girl anymore but a Paralympian, someone they see on TV. Swimming is a sport where you have to fully undress and expose yourself to the world, so I eventually got used to people pointing at me, looking at me differently,” Kukundakwe said in Paris then concluded her speech by calling “upon all governments, and Ministers to continue and invest in para-spot. Many lives are changed through sport.”

More than an athlete

Her coach Muzafaru Muwanguzi was not in the conference room but was left in awe, watching from a YouTube link. The 17 year old’s speech was also the right precursor as she is among 26 athletes nominated for elections to fill six roles on the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Athletes’ Council. The IPC Athletes’ Council is a group of elected athlete representatives who act as the voice of the para-athletes community to the IPC.

“We are not only trying to develop the athlete but also the person. Outside the pool, she is extremely doing well, very popular and building a lot of contacts. We spent the last days campaigning and we hope she goes through.

“If she does, she will be in a better position to advocate for para-sport in Uganda and Africa,” Muwanguzi said.

Part of her advocacy has been tailored to a call for improved facilities in Uganda.

Preparations

“Here (in Uganda), we train in 25m or 25 yard pools, only to go and compete in a 50m pool. Those guys (from better developed countries) have trained in it (50m pool) every day of their lives. They have practiced. When they have a long course season, it is a long course season. So they train in it for like three months. And the only maybe some kind of long course training that I get is from just one swimming pool here in Uganda, and I only train there once a week, and that is only on Saturday, which is nothing compared to someone who has been training in it every day, nine sessions a week for three months," Kukundakwe said in a different interview with Reuters.

The pool she is talking about is Speke Resort Munyonyo, which is not entirely 50m.

Kukundakwe is, however, happy with her training. She “actually qualified for six events but my coach and I had a discussion and we realized that it is not necessary to have all these events so we decided on the main three that I wanted to take part in, those that we believe we have the potential (to excel in).”

Her coach says the “preps are going on well, we have been swimming promising times in training, we expect the best unless something changes. Our targets are time based not position based but if the times give us a final or medal, we will be super excited.” 

In the 100m breaststroke, Kukundakwe has been asked to post anywhere between one minute 26 seconds (1:26.00) or (1:29.00). For 100m fly, the target is to go down to 1:25 and then bring the 50m freestyle time down to between 31 and 33 seconds.

“We adopted a different training style that we are experimenting with. It is high intensity training, given the sprint nature of her events. We race a lot in the sets and wait to see if it will get the job done,” Muwanguzi said.

At a glance

Name: Husnah Kukundakwe

Date of birth: March 25, 2007

Club: Gators

Major events: Paralympics 2024 & 2020, World Para-swimming Championships, World Series, 2022, Commonwealth Games, 2022 Islamic Solidarity Games

Entry times for Paris

50m freestyle – 33.43

100m breaststroke –1:29.32

100m butterfly – 1:29.75