Zurich (AFP)
Namibian Christine Mboma, a specialist in the 400m who moved to the 200m due to the regulations on hyperandrogenic athletes, set the best time of her career on the half-lap in 21 sec 78, improving her African record in the process. , Thursday at the Diamond League finals in Zurich.
Mboma (18) held the African record since the final of the Tokyo Olympic Games where she won the silver medal in 21 sec 81.
She was ahead of Jamaican Shericka Jackson (21 sec 81), 3rd in the 100m of the Olympics, and Briton Dina Asher-Smith, world champion in 2019 (22 sec 19).
Complete unknown before the start of the season, Mboma has exploded to the highest level this year.
She first became at the end of June the 7th best performer of all time in the 400m.
But her Olympic committee announced a few days later that she could not match the distance to the Olympics, being concerned by the regulation on hyperandrogenism which since 2019 has prevented athletes with "differences in sexual development" (DSD ) and a high testosterone level running the international 400m per mile except taking treatment.
She then converted to the 200m, a distance over which she has a series of very high-level lap times.
She has thus lowered her personal best on the half-turn of the track by almost a second since May.
In men, the American Kenny Bednarek won in 19 sec 70 ahead of the Olympic champion Andre De Grasse (19 sec 72) and the American Fred Kerley (19 sec 83), 2nd in the 100m at the Olympics.
© 2021 AFP