Mujinga Kambundji

Mujinga Kambundji (born 17 June 1992) is a Swiss sprinter. She won the bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships in the 200 metres event. Kambundji is the 60 metres 2022 World indoor champion, becoming the joint fourth-fastest woman of all time in the event, after earning a bronze in 2018.

Mujinga Kambundji
Kambundji in 2018
Personal information
NationalitySwiss
Born (1992-06-17) 17 June 1992[1]
Bern,[2] Switzerland
Height1.68 m (5 ft 6 in)[1]
Weight65 kg (143 lb)[1]
Sport
CountrySwitzerland
SportAthletics
Event(s)60-, 100-, 200 metres
ClubST Bern
Coached byValerij Bauer (2013–2017)
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing   Switzerland
World Championships
2019 Doha200 m
World Indoor Championships
2022 Belgrade60 m
2018 Birmingham60 m
European Championships
2016 Amsterdam100 m
European Indoor Championships
2017 Belgrad60 m
European Youth Olympic Festival
2009 Tampere4 × 100 m relay
2009 Tampere100 m

Early life and family

Born in Bern[2] to a Congolese-Swiss father, Safuka, and a Bernese mother, Ruth, Mujinga is the second of four children, Ditaji Kambundji is her younger sister.[3]

Career

In 2009, Kambundji won the silver medal in the 100 metres and gold medal in the 4×100 metres relay at the European Youth Olympic Festival, and the gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres at the Swiss championships. For this, she was elected Swiss Athlete of the Year by the Swiss Athletics Association. In 2010, she won the 200 metres in the Second League of the European Team Championships, and broke the Swiss U20 record in 200 metres in the U20 World Championships.[4]

Mujinga Kambundji trained with the ST Bern athletics club and was trained by Jacques Cordey. In the autumn of 2013 she moved to Mannheim to train under coach Valerij Bauer alongside former European champion Verena Sailer.[5][6]

At the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zürich Kambundji broke her own national record in the heats and semi-finals of the 100 metres competition before finishing fourth in the final.[5] She subsequently finished fifth and broke Regula Aebi's 26-year-old national record in the 200 metres final.[7]

Kambundji qualified for the Swiss team at the 2016 Summer Olympics, reaching the semi-finals of both the 100m and the 200m.[8] Earlier in the same year, she had won bronze in the 100m competition at the European Championships in Amsterdam.[9]

At the 2017 World Championships in London, Kambundji finished 10th in the 100m competition.[10] In the 4 × 100 m relay competition, Kambundji and her teammates Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora improved the national record in the semi-finals[11] and finished fifth in the final.[12] At the end of the year, Kambundji announced that she will work with Dutch coach Henk Kraaijenhof in the future.[13] Their working relationship was terminated after only two months, however.[14]

At the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Kambundji finished 3rd in the 60m final to win bronze. At the European Championships in Berlin, she finished 4th in the 100m as well as in the 200m and in the 4 × 100 m relay (with Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora).

At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Kambundji finished 3rd in the 200 m competition. [15]

At the 2020 Summer Olympics Kambundji qualified for the finals in both 100 m and 200 m sprints, finishing sixth in the former and seventh in the latter event. She was also a part of the Swiss 4 x 100 m relay team that finished fourth in the final.

She won the gold medal in the 60m at the 2022 World Indoor Championships held in Belgrade in a time of 6.96 seconds, putting her joint-fourth on the world all-time list; a rare feat racing from lane eight. No woman had run faster over the distance since 1999.[16]

Competition record
YearCompetitionVenuePositionEventNotes
Representing   Switzerland
2009 World Youth Championships Bressanone, Italy 6th 200 m 23.92
European Youth Olympic Festival Tampere, Finland 2nd 100 m 11.84
1st 4 × 100 m relay 46.30
2011 European Junior Championships Tallinn, Estonia 5th 100 m 11.53
5th 100 m 23.70
2013 European U23 Championships Tampere, Finland 4th 100 m 11.55
5th 200 m 23.70
2014 European Championships Zürich, Switzerland 4th 100 m 11.30
5th 200 m 22.83
4th (h) 4 × 100 m relay 42.981
2015 European Indoor Championships Prague, Czech Republic 5th 60 m 7.11
2016 European Championships Amsterdam, Netherlands 3rd 100 m 11.25
2017 European Indoor Championships Belgrade, Serbia 3rd 60 m 7.16
World Championships London, United Kingdom 5th 4 × 100 m relay 42.51
2018 World Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 3rd 60 m 7.05
European Championships Berlin, Germany 4th 100 m 11.05
4th 200 m 22.45
4th 4 × 100 m relay 42.30
2019 European Indoor Championships Glasgow, United Kingdom 5th 60 m 7.16
World Championships Doha, Qatar 3rd 200 m 22.51
4th 4 × 100 m relay 42.18
2021 Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 6th 100 m 10.99
7th 200 m 22.30
4th 4 × 100 m relay 42.08
2022 World Indoor Championships Belgrade, Serbia 1st 60 m 6.96

1Did not finish in the final

Personal bests
Relays

Miscellaneous

ETH Zurich student organization Swissloop's entry to the 2018 edition of the Hyperloop competition was a transport capsule named Mujinga, after Kambundji.[17]

References
  1. "Mujinga Kambundji". Olympedia.org. OlyMADmen. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  2. About me Archived 2 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine on her website, 2 July 2018.
  3. "Pour les parents de Mujinga Kambundji, "l'équilibre familial passe avant le sport"". La Liberté. 15 May 2014. Retrieved 15 August 2016.
  4. "Junge Bernerin bricht Leichtathletikrekorde". Der Bund. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  5. "Mega-happy Mujinga Kambundji". European Athletics Association. 14 August 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
  6. Schönenberger, Carl (2 August 2009). "Meitschi Kambundji ist ein Juwel!". Blick. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  7. "Athlétisme: Mujinga Kambundji 5e du 200m européen" [Athletics: Mujinga Kambundji 5th in European 200m]. Radio Télévision Suisse (in French). 15 August 2014. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
  8. "Olympic". Archived from the original on 6 August 2016.
  9. "Schippers wins second European 100m gold in Amsterdam | REPORT | World Athletics".
  10. https://media.aws.iaaf.org/competitiondocuments/pdf/5151/AT-100-W-sf----.RS4.pdf
  11. https://media.aws.iaaf.org/competitiondocuments/pdf/5151/AT-4X1-W-h----.RS4.pdf
  12. https://media.aws.iaaf.org/competitiondocuments/pdf/5151/AT-4X1-W-f----.RS6.pdf
  13. "Kambundji geht aufs Ganze". Berner Zeitung (in German). 24 November 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  14. "Von Neuanfang zu Neuanfang". Berner Zeitung (in German). 22 January 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  15. "200 Metres Result | IAAF World Athletics Championships, DOHA 2019".
  16. Crumley, Euan (18 March 2022). "Special run means the world to Kambundji". AW. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  17. Stalder, Helmut. "Mit dieser superschnellen Transportkapsel will ein ETH-Team den Hyperloop-Wettbewerb von Elon Musk gewinnen | NZZ". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 8 April 2022.
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