Gold winner wants to be Malawi star
Fifteen-year-old Mercy Malembo who thrilled and stunned fans while breezing her way to win junior women gold medal in Blantyre on Saturday wants to be the next Malawi athletics star after Catherine Chikwawa Chunda.
Barefoot and focused, the slim girl from Nsalu, Lilongwe was among the stand-out performers for Malawi at the Confederation of African Athletics Southern Africa (CAASR) 2015 Cross-Country Championship at Njamba Freedom Park.
“My dream is to become a soldier and my favourite subject is English. I want to be a top athlete that Malawi will be counting on for many years. Timing was key to my success today. When the rest are getting weary, you step up the gear at the right phase of the race,” said the Standard Five pupil.
Malembo, who is three years old in athletics, runs six kilometres every day to keep fit. To her, with prayer and hard work nothing is impossible. On Saturday, she covered the six kilometres in 21:39:00 minutes, beating 25 runners.
Malawians dominated the cross-country that also pooled athletes from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Abina Tchinga and Kephas Kasten won the junior men eight kilometres and senior men 12 kilometres respectively. Both Tchinga and Kasten are from the Central Region.
Athletics Association of Malawi vice-president Senti Banda said Malembo has an admirable endurance and she is a star in the making.
“Her strength is her single-minded approach to a race. She competes as if she is alone on the track. We have entered her for an international race. Her strength is that she starts and finishes strongly. She is so consistent and has strong endurance,” said Banda.
