Many of us have had the nightmare of a school sports day when some teacher who doesn’t even know you puts your name down for a race you’ve never done.
A race you’ve never trained for perhaps.
But rarely does it happen where an ‘untrained’ runner is entered to represent their country in a professional race.
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A video went viral last week when Somalia entered Nasra Abukar Ali into the 100-metre race at the 31st Summer World University Games in Chendgu, China.
You’d be forgiven if you watched the clip and thought she was stuck in slow-mo behind her fellow sprinters as they power ahead on the track.
Brazil’s Gabriela Silva Mourao took the edge with a speedy 11.68 seconds – almost half of the Somalian’s time.
When she eventually reached the finish line, the clock had long vanished from the TV screens and she racked up a pretty painful, although record, 21.81 seconds.
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Jeremy Clarkson has now hit out at her in his column for the sun
He reckons we ‘sort of knew’ when the women lined up on the start line that ‘something wasn’t quite right’.
The Grand Tour star writes: “I don’t mean to be unkind, but the girl from Somalia didn’t appear to have a typical runner’s physique. She wouldn’t have looked out of place in the shot-putting event. But the 100 metres? No.
“Plus, she could be seen looking at the other competitors as they placed their feet in the blocks so that she had an idea of what was expected of her.”
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Clarkson even claims he could do the race faster than her too; the 63-year-old says he can do it in 17 and he’s ‘as fat as a pig’.
Turns out anyway, Ali is reportedly the niece of the Somali Atheletics Foundation chairwoman – and she has now been suspended from her position.
An investigation by the Somali Ministry of Youth and Sport has revealed the 20-year-old is ‘not a sports person, nor a runner’.
As she finished the race with a casual skip over the finish line, users on X couldn’t believe the video is real, writing: “If this isn’t a skit, I don’t know what else is.”
Others joked: “OMG SHE GOT SMOKEDDDDDD.”
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One user slammed an ‘incompetent government’ for this ‘corruption’ and said: “What you expecting? Nepotism; we have good athletes in Somalia but when it comes to [money] is a different story.”
Topics: Jeremy Clarkson, Sport, World News, Viral
Jess Battison