Mutola - close relations with Mozambique

Just two weeks before she heads for Hengelo (31 May) - IAAF Grand Prix - to run her first race in Europe, Maria Mutola hopped over from Johannesburg, South Africa to Maputo, to visit her home-country Mozambique. There she encouraged a group of young athletes and discussed the developments at the Lurdes Mutola Foundation with her employees.

Five years ago Mutola decided to leave the United States, where she had been living ever since the IOC gave her the opportunity to study and train in Eugene, Oregon.

”I had some serious problems because of an allergy and didn’t want to take medicines all the time,” she explained. “Looking for another place to live I choose Jo’burg, as it is close to my country and my family.”

Living in Mozambique isn’t possible for a big star such as Mutola. After her many successes at the Olympics and World Championships, as soon as she arrives in Maputo, the local press is present to report about all she is doing and fans want autographs etc.

”But from the place that I’m living now, it’s only 45 minutes by plane or a four hour drive, so I can see my friends and family more often.”

Her visits to Maputo don’t have a purely social reason. Mutola is also the head of her own Lurdes Mutola Foundation. Incidently, in earlier days she was already contributing to athletics in Mozambique. For instance,  the sports ground where she had first trained when she originally changed from soccer to athletics at the age of fifteen got an artificial track thanks to her financial support.

However, three years ago Mutola decided to bring these kind of activities together in a foundation, which could then develop some bigger projects.

”In setting up a foundation of solidarity. I am complying with a duty of civic and patriotic awareness: I am formalising a commitment to the country where I was born and grew up.”

Mutola took the Golden League Jackpot last year, the first time it had ever been won outright by just one athlete. She did it on her own and gathered one million dollars. Part of this reward and other prize money has gone to the Foundation.

But she also is also using her name and fame to attract partners who will invest in the projects too. She asks her sponsors not only to pay her, but also to put money into Mozambican sport. A provider of mobile telephones, who is a local sponsor of Mutola, helped to create a soccer pitch in the centre of the slums of Chamanculo, the neighbourhood where she lived before moving to the United States.

During her last visit, Mutola brought tennis gear from the Swiss tennis federation to give to young players at a sports ground in the city of Matula.

She is a great motivator. Talking with junior athletes during a clinic, she gives them all sort of advice and encouragement. “Hold on to your dreams,” she said. “Don’t let disappointment drive you away from the sport.”

The biggest project she wants to develop is the renovation of the athletic track in Maputo.

”We don’t need an indoor facility in this country,” Bruno Macame says. He is the CEO of the foundation. “But we really need a gym and a medical centre for our athletes. To make the new sports facility attractive for more Mozambicans, we also want to build a small swimming pool and tennis courts.”

“We need around 1.5 million euro,” Mutola says, “and the cooperation of the government.”

Doesn’t she want to play some political role in Mozambique in the future, like Haile Gebrselassie is thinking of being the President of Ethiopia?

Mutola laughs.

“If I ever will do so, it will be good enough to be minister of sports. That’s the field where I feel at home.”

But that’s something for the long term. First she wants to defend her Olympic 800m title in Athens. Mutola was rather pleased with the start of the season, when she ran a 2:00.38 in Kingston, Jamaica.

”For Hengelo I’m thinking of a 1.57,“ she says. “Training is going very well and I should like to run a 1:55 or even 1:54 in July, before going to Athens.”

Cors van den Brink for the IAAF