A sprinter from Congo now competing regularly on the world stage: ‘I belong’

A sprinter, she won a bronze medal in the women’s 100 at the Francophone Games in Kinshasa (RDC) in late July 2023, finishing in 11.44 seconds.

In August, at the athletics world championships in Budapest (HUN), she lined up and raced against the best in the world – just as she had done two years prior, at the Tokyo Summer Games. 

It’s all possible, she says, because of an Olympic Solidarity scholarship, one that has for the past couple years allowed her to take up residence and training at the Centre Régional Jeunesse et Sport Petit-Couronne in Rouen (FRA), about two hours northwest of Paris.

“It makes all the difference,” she said in an interview in Budapest. “There is before. And there is now.”

She added, “I am very happy now because I am changing. I am coming from a place where everyone sees me changing. I am professionally oriented to competition.

“Now I am professional. Without the scholarship, it would be very hard. Too hard, for sure.”

The Centre features 115 young athletes ages 12 to 18 from around France who live, go to school and train there. It also counts roughly a dozen Solidarity Scholarship holders from African nations such as the Central African Republic, Niger, Guinea-Bissau and the widely acknowledged standout, Ngoye Akamabi, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For all involved, it’s a win-win.

The Centre wins by introducing its young French students to athletes from different cultures.

Those from Africa gain access to infrastructure and technical know-how they almost surely would not otherwise have ready access to.

“The staff is very good and the director,” Christophe Cornilleau, in charge for the past six years, “is here for any and every problem,” Ngoye Akamabi said.

Her innate talent got her to the Tokyo Games in 2021. There, as she acknowledged then and laughs about now, it was the first time she had ever competed on such a grand stage. There was nothing like racing against the world’s best in – Congo.

At the Games, she made it through the prelims, in 11.47, and then in Round 1, ran 11.52, sixth of seven, not enough to move on.

“Tokyo was big,” she said, adding a moment later, “With the scholarship, I have many possibilities for running fast.”

Her coach, Amadou Mbaye, has given her consistency. He said she now has every possibility not just to make the Olympics in Paris in 2024 but to make those Games a breakthrough.

Would you know it from her performance in Budapest? Not exactly. She finished 43rd, in 11.6.

Then again, there had been a complicated situation of travel and logistics involving Mbaye, accreditations and more in the two weeks between the end of the Francophone Games in Kinshasa and the start of the Budapest worlds. He said, and she agreed, that it simply proved too difficult in Budapest to focus.

“If the situation is OK,” he said, “I am sure it is possible for Natacha to go to the semifinals.”

For sure, she said.

“Now I have another vision of the championships,” she said. “I belong.”