Mujinga Kambundji

Mujinga Kambundji (born 17 June 1992) is a Swiss sprinter. She won the bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships in the 200 metres event.

Early life and family

Born in Bern to a Congolese-Swiss father, Safuka, and a Bernese mother, Ruth, Mujinga is the second of four children.

Career

In 2009, Kambundji won the silver medal in the 100 metres and gold medal in the 4×100 metres relay at the European Youth Olympic Festival, and the gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres at the Swiss championships. For this, she was elected Swiss Athlete of the Year by the Swiss Athletics Association. In 2010, she won the 200 metres in the Second League of the European Team Championships, and broke the Swiss U20 record in 200 metres in the U20 World Championships.

Mujinga Kambundji trained with the ST Bern athletics club and was trained by Jacques Cordey. In the autumn of 2013 she moved to Mannheim to train under coach Valerij Bauer alongside former European champion Verena Sailer.

At the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zürich Kambundji broke her own national record in the heats and semi-finals of the 100 metres competition before finishing fourth in the final. She subsequently finished fifth and broke Regula Aebi's 26-year-old national record in the 200 metres final.

Kambundji qualified for the Swiss team at the 2016 Summer Olympics, reaching the semi-finals of both the 100m and the 200m. Earlier in the same year, she had won bronze in the 100m competition at the European Championships in Amsterdam.

At the 2017 World Championships in London, Kambundji finished 10th in the 100m competition. In the 4 × 100 m relay competition, Kambundji and her teammates Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora improved the national record in the semi-finals and finished fifth in the final. At the end of the year, Kambundji announced that she will work with Dutch coach Henk Kraaijenhof in the future. Their working relationship was terminated after only two months, however.

At the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Kambundji finished 3rd in the 60m final to win bronze. At the European Championships in Berlin, she finished 4th in the 100m as well as in the 200m and in the 4 × 100 m relay (with Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora).

At the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Kambundji finished 3rd in the 200m competition.