Kenyan para-rower Asiya Sururu trains at River Oise in Compiegne, France on August 11, 2024.
In Paris
Team Kenya’s captain, Samwel Mushai, and his deputy Asiya Sururu, hope to lead from the front when they compete at the Paris Paralympic Games on Friday.
The performances by Mushai, the multiple Paralympics champion, who will be competing in his fourth Paralympic Games, and Sururu, who is on her second show, could easily determine Team Kenya’s bearing in Paris.
Sururu, 32, is a double amputee. Her legs were amputated above her knees at the age of three when a train mowed down her legs in Mombasa in 1995.
Taekwondo player Stency Neema was the first Kenyan to compete on Thursday. She lost to Egyptian Salma Ali Abd Al Moneem Hassan in the under-52 kilograms K44 category.
The 37-year-old Mushai, who has likened himself to an old fine wine that matures with age, is a man on a mission in the French capital.
The visually impaired athlete from Kitale in Trans Nzoia County is out to reclaim his 5,000m T11 title, which he failed to defend at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, after missing out due to a hamstring injury.
Mushai made his Paralympics debut in 2008 Beijing where he collected silver in the 1,500m T11 silver, and improved to gold four years later in the London Paralympic Games, in a World and Games Record time of 3:58:37.
Mushai, the 2017 London and 2019 Dubai world 5,000m T11 champion went on to seal a double at the 2016 Rio Paralympics with victory in the 5,000m T11.
Mushai faces a formidable challenge from Brazilian Jacques Yeltsin, who claimed a double in the 1,500m T11 and 5,000m T11, at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
Yeltsin has five medals from the World Para Athletics Championships, which include 800m T12 from 2013 Lyon, 1,500m T11 from 2023 Paris, and 5,000m T11 from 2024 Kobe, Japan.
Mushai, who has a personal best of 15:16.11, and Yeltsin (14:53.97), will face off for the second time this year after their battle in Kobe where the Kenyan settled seventh. Yeltsin is the fastest in the pack.
“I was not in really good shape in Kobe but the residential training at home and here in France has worked wonders. I leave everything to God now,” said Mushai.
The men’s 1,500m T11 gets underway at 11.06am (Kenyan time). On the other hand, Sururu, who made her Paralympics debut at the Tokyo Games, believes she has the experience to dine with the ‘big girls’ of rowing in the PR1 single sculls.
“We are born ready and I am ready to roll. I was a greenhorn when I tested the waters in Tokyo, but I am now full of experience, expectations, and hopes,” said Sururu, 32, who takes off in the first heat at 10.30am (Kenyan time).
The event has two heats where the rowers with the top sixth fastest times proceed to the final, while the remaining six drop to the repechage.
Sururu’s legs were amputated above her knees at the age of three when a train mowed down her legs in Mombasa. Stency’s compatriot, Julieta Moipo (under 57kg) will take the stage on Friday against seasoned Micey Marija, 27, from Serbia.
It will be Moipo’s maiden international outing as compared to Marija, who attended the Tokyo Games where she finished seventh.
The performance followed her silver medal exploits at the 2019 World Championships in Turkey and the 2023 World Championships in Veracruz, Mexico.
Team Kenya events on Friday
Para rowing:
10.30am: Asiya Sururu (women’s single sculls)
Para athletics:
11.06am: Samwel Mushai (men’s 5,000m T11)
