Ugandan female rower Grace Kathleen Noble will be competing in Heat 2 of Women’s Single Sculls when female rowers take it to the the Sea Forest Waterway at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in Japan. The event will happen at 3: 40 AM EAT.
Kathleen, 26 is Uganda’s first ever rower at the Olympics and hopefully her appearance in Tokyo will open doors for more rowers back at home to earn slots at the summer games.
Kathleen will be in lane 1 alongside five other female rowers, that is; Anneta Kyridou (Greece), Joan Poh (Singapore), Felice Aisha Chow (Trinidad and Tobago), Sanita Puspure (Latvia) and Kenia Lechuga (Mexico).
To make it to the quarter finals, Kathleen needs to finish within the podium (1st to 3rd). Number four and five will compete in the event’s Repechage.
Ahead of her debut, Kathleen, also a swimmer says that many factors come into play to determine the result but above all she will focus on herself.
“In rowing you cannot look at people’s times and judge because the weather plays a huge factor,” Kathleen told Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) media team adding that; “I will be looking at finishing among the fastest rowers from Africa.”
Kathleen will be the first Ugandan athlete to compete at this year’s games that were initially slated for last year but were postponed due to Covid-19 disruptions. Other athletes across various disciplines will compete at their respective events as proceedings roll on.
The Olympics proper 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.
