By Nankali za Muserengwa
RUNDU, 26 June 2022 – Namibia’s sensational Mudi Inosensia Haingura, 21-year-old national champion in 400m and 800m, and who recently represented Namibia at the 2022 African Athletics Championships in Mauritius where she came fifth behind South Africa’s Miranda Coetzee, runs barefoot and trains on her own as she doesn’t have a coach yet.
Mudi, as she is popularly known in Rundu, started her career at Sambyu Combined School in Mashare constituency of Kavango East in 2015 assisted by her teacher Mr Shikesho. He identified her talent and took her to several athletics competitions with his club, Lishingangombe Athletics Club, which led to her scooping two gold medals in consecutive years, 2016 and 2017, at the national athletics championships in Windhoek.
Mudi said one of the first challenges in her career, and one that she overcame, was when she moved from Sambyu CS to Ndama CS and Dr. Romanus Kamunoko Secondary School as they don’t have athletics at either of those two Rundu schools. And she only started running again when she met Coach Masambo of Ehumbu Athletics Club in Rundu.
An embarrassment she recently experienced was when she represented the country at the International Athletics Championships in Gaborone, Botswana in May when she was disallowed from running barefoot in terms of international rules. So, she had no choice but to borrow running shoes from a fellow competitor to participate and came 6th in the 400m event which was won by Christine Mboma, also from Namibia.
Mudi and her fellow National team mates during international Athletic Championship held in Gaborone , Botswana in May 2022
On her June trip to the African Athletics Championships in Mauritius teachers at Dr, Romanus Kamunoko contributed money and bought her running shoes. There another challenge was using running shoes for the first time.
“The shoes were not heavy but I was just not used to shoes since it was my first time wearing athletics shoes in my life,” Mudi said.
She also met Coach Henk Botha on the same trip to Mauritius but they did not speak. So she said she will never give up and just continue to exercise on her own – Namibia Daily News
