Africa-Press – Uganda. It didn’t go according to plan for Peace Oroma. Her 100m T13 race at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics was anything but. The Ugandan sprinter got green card, issued for distracting her colleagues at the start.
Then, then gun developed a minor fault.
When the race successfully got off, eventually, Oroma was already catching up. She stopped the clock at 13.17 seconds, a Personal Best to finish sixth in a race of six. Azerbaijan’s Elena Chebanu and Adriaratou Iglesias Forneiro advanced to the final.
The slowest of the eight qualifiers clocked 12.41 seconds – Iuliia Ianovskaia (Azerbaijan) and Joanna Pretorius (South Africa).
Oroma was 0.76 seconds off that pace. “I will improve and if I train hard, I will make it very far,” Oroma said. “I am happy (to make the Paralympics for the first time) even if I didn’t make it to the final.
Personal Best
“This was my first time to run a lower 13 (seconds).”
This is only her third international competition after her debut at the Africa Para-Athletics Championships in 2020, an event she returned to this year.
Like all athletes, Oroma has not had a chance to run on the Namboole track this year after it’s closure to accommodate a Covid-19 treatment facility.
That track mirrors the conditions here but she has only trained on grass.
Unlike para-swimmer Husnah Kukundakwe and 1500m T46 bronze medallist David Emong, Oroma registered for two races.
She will run in the women’s 400m T13 event tomorrow.
