Noble finishes Olympic regatta as second top African rower

Noelyn Nassuuna | July 30, 2021

By Makhtum Muziransa

Ugandan rower Kathleen Grace Noble saved the best for the last to end her Tokyo 2020 Olympic regatta as the second top placed African contestant in the 2000m women’s single scull held this morning at the Sea Forest Waterway.

Noble was in Final E, where she gave her all- upping her rate to 37 strokes per minute, to finish just behind only Qatari challenger, Tala Abujbara (8:00.22) but beating contestants from Nicaragua (8:10.37), Singapore (8:21.23), Morocco (8:25.38) and Nigeria (8:42.78).

“I am so proud, she used every ounce of energy,” Coach Ahsan Iqbal said after her rower finished in eight minutes seven seconds (8:07.00).

“She stuck to the plan and blasted out at the start. And then stuck with it,” Iqbal added as Noble placed 26th out of the 32 rowers that entered the competition.

“She is very pleased with it. She could not barely step out of the boat and leaned on me for the first few minutes. There was not an ounce of energy left in her as she used it all on the course,” Iqbal described his rower who felt proud leaving everything on course.

The 26-year-old Ugandan, however, finished behind 18th placed Nambian rower Maike Diekmann (7:52.17) at the competition that climaxed this morning.

Written by Noelyn Nassuuna