Sandrine Thiébaud-Kangni

Sandrine Thiébaud-Kangni
Personal information
Full name Sandrine Carmen Genevieve Thiébaud-Kangni
Nationality  Togo
Born (1976-04-21) 21 April 1976
Sucy-en-Brie, France
Height 1.76 m (5 ft 9 1⁄2 in)
Weight 65 kg (143 lb)
Sport
Sport Athletics
Event(s) Sprint, heptathlon
Club Saint-Denis Émotion Athletisme (FRA)
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s) 400 m: 52.50 s (2003)
Heptathlon: 5,079 points (2010)

Sandrine Carmen Genevieve Thiébaud-Kangni (born April 21, 1976 in Sucy-en-Brie, France) is a French-born Togolese sprinter and heptathlete.[1] She is a two-time Olympian and a multiple-time national record holder for the sprint and heptathlon. She is also the daughter of middle-distance runner Roger Kangni, who competed in the 800 metres at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.[2]

Athletic career

Since 2001, Kangni holds a dual French-Togolese citizenship, and chose to represent her father's birthplace Togo at numerous sporting events, including the Olympic games.[3] She first competed at the 2002 African Athletics Championships in Radès, Tunisia, where she attained a semi-final finish in the women's 400 metres. The following year, Kangni reached her breakthrough season by breaking both a national record and a personal best of 52.50 seconds at the 2003 IAAF World Championships in Saint-Denis, France.

Kangni followed her father's footsteps by competing for the women's 400 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She finished sixth in the fifth heat of the event by two hundredths of a second (0.02) behind Jamaica's Allison Beckford, with a time of 52.85 seconds.

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Kangni competed again for the second time in the 400 metres. She ran in the seventh and final heat against six other athletes, including Jamaica's Shericka Williams, who eventually won the silver medal in the final. She finished the race in seventh place by five seconds ahead of Swaziland's Temalangeni Dlamini, outside her personal best of 54.16. Kangni, however, failed to advance into the semi-finals, as she placed forty-fifth overall, and was ranked farther below three mandatory slots for the next round.[4] Following her elimination from the heats, Kangni announced that the Olympic games in Beijing was a "great feast for the sport", and also, represented the culmination of her career.[5]

Despite of her sudden retirement from the Olympics, Kangni continued to build her success in the track and field by participating in numerous sporting events. In 2010, she opted to focus on and compete for the heptathlon at the Meeting International de Maurice in Réduit, Mauritius, where she set a personal best and a national record-breaking score of 5,079 points.[6]

At the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, Kangni made her comeback into the international scene as a sprinter for the 400 metres. She finished last in the first heat and thirty-fifth overall, with her slowest time of 59.68 seconds.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Sandrine Thiébaud-Kangni". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  2. ↑ "Togo's hero has only been there once... as a toddler". The Belfast Telegraph. 13 August 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Sandrine Thiébaud-Kangni défend les couleurs du Togo aux 400 m à Daegu" [Sandrine Thiebaud-Kangni defends the colors of Togo to 400 m in Daegu] (in French). Togo News. 28 August 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  4. ↑ "Women's 400m Round 1 – Heat 7". NBC Olympics. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  5. ↑ "Beijing, c'est l'aboutissement de ma carrière" [Beijing is the culmination of my career] (in French). Republic of Togo Sport. 19 March 2008. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
  6. ↑ "Athlétisme/Sandrine Thiebaud: Réaliser plus de 5300 points au Kenya" [Athletics / Sandrine Thiebaud: Achieve more than 5,300 points in Kenya] (in French). Association des Journalistes Sportifs du Togo (AJST). 24 May 2010. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
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