Ugandan female rower Grace Kathleen Noble finished 3rd in Heat 3 of Women’s Single Sculls
during the event’s Repechage at the Sea Forest Waterway at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in Japan. The event that happened on Saturday had five participants.
Kathleen, 26 managed a time of 8:36.01 and albeit finishing on the podium, she couldn’t proceed to the quarter finals because only the top two players could do so.
Cuban female rower Venega Cancio Milena finished first with a winning time of 8:17.30 and proceeded to the quarter finals of the main event together with Hong Kong’s Winnie Hung Wing-yuen who finished second with a time of 8:23.58.
Kathleen together with the other two athletes who finished fourth and fifth will compete in the semifinal E or F on Sunday. Their chances of attaining Olympic silverware are no more for the Repechage was the final pathway to do so after they again fell short in the opening round. They will now compete for positions.
Togolese female rower Claire Ayivon finished fourth with a time 9:04.23 while Sudan’s Esraa Khogali trailed with a time of 10:25.94.
Kathleen who is Uganda’s first ever rower at the Olympics came out as the fastest African in her heat. Earlier on, she had aimed to emerge fastest African female rower at the games.
The Olympics will run from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan with 25 Ugandan athletes (13 females and 12 males) set to be in the mix.