This might be the worst 100m you’ll ever see.
It’s not often that a race at the World University Games goes viral, but something very special happened in China when Somalia’s Nasri Ali Abukar stepped to the blocks for a heat in the women’s 100m.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports should step down. It’s disheartening to witness such an incompetent government. How could they select an untrained girl to represent Somalia in running? It’s truly shocking and reflects poorly on our country internationally. pic.twitter.com/vMkBUA5JSL
— Elham Garaad ✍︎ (@EGaraad_) August 1, 2023
Ali Abukar finished in 21.81, easily last in the heat and clearly having absolutely no running form. In fact, it didn’t even really appear that she’d ever run in a truly competitive race before, let alone against athletes who had been training at a high level.
This is not a case of simply not having the same resources as other countries, because Somalia has an incredible running culture to pull athletes from. Furthermore, the other athlete representing Somalia qualified for the final of the men’s 1500m with one of the top times.
So why did someone woefully unqualified make it all the way to China? There appears to be a pretty clear reason.
Corruption and Nepotism continue.
In a Facebook post, Khadija Aden Dahir, the senior vice president of the Somali Athletics Federation, sends her congratulations to her niece, the young athlete representing Somalia at the 31st Fisu World University Games in China. Clearly… pic.twitter.com/rUglIAMPOY
— Elham Garaad ✍︎ (@EGaraad_) August 1, 2023
While we cannot confirm these claims of nepotism, it does appear that the Facebook post is unaltered and that Ali Abukar is related to a high-ranking member of the Somali Athletics Federation.
There has been no statement from the Somali government, nor are we likely to see one. The result sheet for the race says it all, really.
