Short-distance runner earns Malawi women’s football team call-up

Record-breaking short-distance runner Asimenye Simwaka has earned selection into Malawi senior women’s football team squad for the Cosafa Women’s Championship scheduled for South Africa later this month.

Simwaka has earned the selected days after returning from the United Kingdom, where she represented Team Malawi at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Simwaka was the overall best performing individual athlete for Team Malawi at the Games.

She broke Malawi’s individual record for 400m for women when she clocked 51:70 to finish number two behind Victoria Ohuruogu in the semifinal.

In doing so, she became the first Malawian ever to clinch a final berth. However, Simwaka did not perform as expected in the final as she eventually finished in fifth place.

Nonetheless, there was no doubt that she had punched above her weight.

Now, newly-appointed Malawi women’s football team coach Thom Mkolongo hopes Simwaka’s pace and dribbling can help the Scorchers at the Cosafa Championship scheduled for Port Elizabeth from August 31 to September 11, 2022.

Mkolongo named Simwaka in the 32-member squad to start camp on Monday ahead of the 2022 Cosafa Championship scheduled for Gqeberha, South Africa.

For starters, she was named player-of-the-match for Malawi as they beat Banyana Banyana 1-0 in the 2021 Cosafa Championship semifinal played in South Africa.

Back home, when she is not training in athletics, Simwaka plays football for Topic women’s football club FC, based in Mzuzu City, located in the Northern Region.

It was in this city where Simwaka ventured into athletics by chance after she went to watch a national cross-country at Mzuzu Gold Club on February 16 2020.

She learnt at the venue that the championship was open for any interested person to register and compete. She did and ended up winning gold. With that, her career had started.

Before competing in the senior women’s section of the cross country, the 24-year-old had neither trained in athletics nor competed in any race. She was just known as Topic attacking midfielder.

Little wonder, the fourth born in a family of seven remembers that day vividly.

“I had heard on radio that there was a national cross-country at the club, and I went there as a fan. I later learnt that it was an open competition, and I registered in the 10,000 senior women’s category and emerged number one,” she said.

Simwaka clocked 42.48 and outclassed a field of 19 runners to win gold.

As if that was not enough of a dream, Simwaka tried her luck in the relay team for 10,000m and ended up in position one again.

Such exploits paved the way for her call-up to the national athletics team for the 2020 Olympic Games.

Eventually, national athletics coaches turned Simwaka from being a long-distance runner into a sprinter.

Soon Simwaka travelled to Zambia for Olympic qualifying races, claiming second place for 200m in 24.19 and then third place for 400m in 57.46 on the same day.

A few months later, she went to Cameroon to participate in the final qualifying tournament for the Olympics. Simwaka broke the 200m national record at the Cameroon National Athletics Championship after clocking 23:51 in 200m on June 20 2021.

At the same Cameroon event, Simwaka clocked 52:57 in 400m and nearly became Malawi’s first-ever qualified Olympic.

She nonetheless went to the Olympics in solidarity. She clocked 11:68 in women’s 100m round 1-Heat 1 to finish eighth and break Susan Tengatenga’s record time of 12:25, which had stood for 12 years for Malawi.

The athlete-cum-footballer is Malawi’s holder of records in 100m, 200m and 400m.

As if that is not enough on her crammed schedule, Asimenye also works as a Malawi Defence Force soldier.

Calling her an all-around athlete is an understatement.