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Medication diverts Mboma and Masilingi’s destiny

• 12 Hours Ago

Two of Namibia’s brightest sporting stars, Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi (both now 22), have become a shadow of their once glorious selves.

The pair of sprinters and training partners burst onto the athletics scene about six years ago, clocking incredible times and winning accolades, but are now far from where they used to be – and seemingly unable to find their way back.

Their recent performances in training and in competitions have marked a decline to what looked destined to be Namibia’s unstoppable golden athletics future.

In April, the athletes were far from convincing in the 100 metres in a World Athletics Continental Tour event in Botswana, where Masilingi finished sixth clocking 11.48, while Mboma was eleventh (11.88).

The athletes’ performances that day and since are ringing alarm bells to their coach Henk Botha, who remains extremely concerned.

From once worldwide fame and a jet-setting lifestyle, the athletes are steadily disappearing from the headlines.

The obvious turning point came around August 2021, when Mboma and Masilingi were subject to a controversial decision by World Athletics (WA), which barred them from competing in international events until their natural testosterone levels were lowered.

The process took numerous months and the athletes missed out on important events as well as training during the time they were meant to reduce their testosterone levels.

The after-effects of what the two had been consuming to lower their testosterone levels are becoming noticeable as Botha keeps tabs on their training sessions.

According to a journal on National Library of Medicine, suppression of elevated circulating testosterone of hyper-androgenic athletes results in negative effects on performance, which are reversed when suppression ceases.

Coach Henk Botha revealed how he has been struggling with the revival of the two supremely talented golden girls.

“The problem we have with the girls at the moment is that they can be one day brilliant and the other day it becomes so bad.

“I think this is what the medicine is doing to the girls, because there are days they look like their old selves, and then the other day their performances are really ordinary,” Botha said.



Career pinnacles

During 2021 and 2022, the pair of teenagers and their coach were on an unstoppable world-beating course, until World Athletics first restricted and then brought their active careers to a complete halt through a controversial finding of naturally high testosterone levels in both.

They were restricted from running the 400 metres, which at times looked to be their best event. But still, Mboma won a silver medal in the 200m at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first-ever Namibian woman to win a women’s Olympic medal, while also breaking a world under-20 and African senior record.

Mboma also later won a gold medal at the 2021 World U20 Championship in Nairobi. Winning the 200m Diamond League Final in Zürich was another career pinnacle in 2021.

At the age of 18, Masilingi placed sixth in the 200 metres final at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, behind silver medallist Mboma.

She also won silver medals in both the 100 and 200 at the 2021 World U20 Championship.

In the 400, Masilingi achieved the second-fastest world under-18 time, and the third-fastest world under-20 time in history, with her marks of 50.42 and 49.53 seconds set in December 2020 and April 2021, respectively.

Their personal bests in the 100, 200 and 400 are:

Masilingi 11.20 / 22.18 / 49.53.

Mboma 10.97 / 21.78 / 49.22.

On a glorious day in June 2021, Mboma timed 48.54 seconds to win the 400 metres in Bydgoszcz, Poland, becoming the 7th fastest woman of all time in the event with the 12th fastest result ever. However, what should have been an African senior and new world U20 record has since been unratified.

With every passing day, all this is however fading further into history, with a bleak athletics future ahead, with only memories of where their career curve had once promised to take them.

Botha said: “We are really struggling, because you never know which athlete will pitch up at the competition.

“I am actually in a bit of a bad place as I am struggling to get answers. This has been really difficult for us to take.”