Kambundji is the Swiss record holder for the 100 m and 200 m, and the Swiss indoor record holder for the 60 m. She won almost 30 national titles.
Early life and family
Mujinga Kambundji was born on 17 June 1992 in Bern[1] to a Congolese father, Safuka, and a Bernese mother, Ruth. Mujinga is the second of four children. Her younger sister Ditaji is also an international athlete and has represented Switzerland at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.[3] Her older sister, Kaluanda, was the first to enrol in a track programme, followed by Mujinga, then Muswama, and finally Ditaji.
In 2010, she won the 200 m in the Second League of the European Team Championships, and broke the Swiss U20 record in the event at the U20 World Championships.[4]
2013—2014
Kambundji trained with the ST Bern athletics club and was coached by Jacques Cordey. In the autumn of 2013 she moved to Mannheim to train under coach Valerij Bauer alongside former European champion Verena Sailer.[5][6]
At the 2017 World Championships in London, Kambundji finished 10th in the 100 m competition.[10] In the 4 × 100 m relay event, she and her teammates Ajla Del Ponte, Sarah Atcho and Salomé Kora improved the national record in the semi-finals[11] and finished fifth in the final.[12] At the end of the year, Kambundji announced that she will work with Dutch coach Henk Kraaijenhof in the future.[13] Their working relationship was terminated after only two months, however.[14] She switched coaches again to Adrian Rothenbühler who trained her for five years until November 2022 when her partner Florian Clivaz, a former sprinter, replaced Rothenbühler as Kambundji's coach.[15][16]
At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Kambundji qualified for the finals in both 100 m and 200 m sprints, finishing sixth in the former and seventh in the latter event. She was also part of the Swiss 4 x 100 m relay team that finished fourth in the final.
She won the gold medal in the 60 m at the 2022 World Indoor Championships held in Belgrade in a time of 6.96 seconds, putting her joint-fourth on the world all-time list; a rare feat racing from lane eight. No woman had run faster over the distance since 1999.[18] She received another award for being the Swiss Sportswoman of the Year in December.
ETH Zurich student organization Swissloop's entry to the 2018 edition of the Hyperloop competition was a transport capsule named Mujinga, after Kambundji.[21]
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