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Mujinga Kambundji
Swiss sprinter (born 1992) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Mujinga Kambundji (German pronunciation: [muˈʒɪŋa kamˈbʊndʒi];[3] born 17 June 1992) is a Swiss sprinter. She won the bronze medal in the 200 metres at the 2019 World Championships. Kambundji is the 2022 and 2025 World Indoor champion, becoming the joint fourth-fastest woman of all time in the event, after earning a bronze in 2018. She is a three-time European Championships medallist, with gold for the 200 m and silver for the 100 m in 2022, and bronze for the 100 m in 2016. At the European Indoor Championships, she earned gold in the 60 m in 2023 and bronze in 2017.
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Kambundji is the Swiss record holder for the 100 m and 200 m, and the Swiss indoor record holder for the 60 m. She won almost 30 national titles.
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Early life and family
Mujinga Kambundji was born on 17 June 1992 in Bern[1] to a Congolese father, Safuka, and a Bernese mother, Ruth. Mujinga is the second of four children. Her younger sister Ditaji is also an international athlete, specializing in the sprint hurdles, who represented Switzerland at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.[4] Her older sister, Kaluanda, was the first to enroll in a track programme, followed by Mujinga, then Muswama, and finally Ditaji.
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Career
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2009—2010
In 2009, Kambundji won the silver medal in the 100 metres and the gold medal in the 4 × 100 m relay at the European Youth Olympic Festival, and 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 m in the Second League of the European Team Championships, and broke the Swiss U20 record in the event at the U20 World Championships.[5]
2013—2014
Kambundji trained with the ST Bern athletics club and was coached by Jacques Cordey. In the autumn of 2013 she moved to Mannheim to train under coach Valerij Bauer alongside former European champion Verena Sailer.[6][7]
At the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zürich, she broke her own national record in the heats and semi-finals of the 100 metres competition before finishing fourth in the final.[6] She subsequently finished fifth and broke Regula Aebi's 26-year-old national record in the 200 metres final.[8]
2016—2017
Kambundji qualified for the Swiss team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, reaching the semi-finals of both the 100 m and the 200 m events.[9] Earlier in the same year, she had won bronze in the 100 m competition at the European Championships in Amsterdam.[10]
At the 2017 World Championships in London, Kambundji finished 10th in the 100 m competition.[11] In the 4 × 100 m relay event, she and her teammates Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora improved the national record in the semi-finals[12] and finished fifth in the final.[13] At the end of the year, Kambundji announced that she will work with Dutch coach Henk Kraaijenhof in the future.[14] Their working relationship was terminated after only two months, however.[15] She switched coaches again to Adrian Rothenbühler who trained her for five years until November 2022 when her partner Florian Clivaz, a former sprinter, replaced Rothenbühler as Kambundji's coach.[16][17]
2018—2019
At the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Kambundji finished third in the 60 m final to win bronze. At the European Championships in Berlin, she finished fourth in the 100 m as well as in the 200 m and in the 4 × 100 m relay (with Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora).
At the 2019 World Championships held in Doha, Qatar, Kambundji finished third in the 200 m competition.[18] Later, she was named the Swiss Sports Personality of the Year.
2021—2022
At the delayed 2020 Tokyo 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 part of the Swiss 4 × 100 m relay team that finished fourth in the final.
She won the gold medal in the 60 m 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.[19] She received another award for being the Swiss Sportswoman of the Year in December.
On 19 August 2022, Kambundji won the gold medal in the 200 m at the European Athletics Championships in Munich with a time of 22.32 s, after winning silver in the 100 m in 10.99 s behind Germany's Gina Lückenkemper three days earlier.[20][21]
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Miscellaneous
ETH Zurich student organization Swissloop's entry to the 2018 edition of the Hyperloop competition was a transport capsule named Mujinga, after Kambundji.[22]
Achievements
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Personal bests
International competitions
1Did not finish in the final.
Circuit wins and titles
- (4 × 100 metres relay wins, other events specified in parentheses)
- 2013: Lausanne Athletissima
- 2015: Lausanne Athletissima
- 2017: Lausanne Athletissima
- 2018: Lausanne Athletissima
- 2021: Eugene Prefontaine Classic (200 m)
- 2022 (2): Stockholm Bauhaus-Galan (MR), Lausanne Athletissima
- (200 metres wins, other nspecified in parentheses)
- (60 metres wins, other events specified in parentheses)
National titles
- Swiss Athletics Championships (19)
- 100 metres: 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023
- 200 metres: 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019
- Swiss Indoor Athletics Championships (9)
- 60 metres indoor: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023
- 200 metres indoor: 2011
Recognition
2019
2022
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See also
References
External links
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