Olympics: Hopkins' Fahnbulleh, Rice Lake's Bednarek advance to 200-meter semifinals. St. Paul's Matadi out with injury
Aug. 3—Hopkins' Joseph Fahnbulleh and Rice Lake's Kenneth Bednarek each advanced out of the first round of the Olympic men's 200-meter dash on Tuesday morning in Tokyo — Monday night back in the states.
St. Paul's Emmanuel Matadi, however, didn't get the chance to do so. Matadi, a two-time Olympian and 2009 St. Paul Johnson grad, ran in the 100-meters earlier in the Olympics. He ran a 10.25 in the first round of the 100, missing qualifying for the semifinals by just eight-hundredths of a second.
In a post on Facebook, Matadi noted that for the past few weeks he's experienced hip pain. He recently discovered there was a tear in the muscle. The injury caused Matadi to withdraw from the 200 meters after racing in the 100. The 30-year-old's Olympics are now over.
"Regardless of of whatever pain I may have felt, I still wanted to come out there and compete in what may of been my last Olympic Games not only for myself, but for my love of Liberia," Matadi wrote on Facebook. "No pity party for me please. Let's just enjoy the moment of Liberia being on the world stage! ... Time for me to rest and rehab. Thank you all for the support. I love y'all and remember #BeWhoYouWannaBe."
Also in his post, Matadi noted that Liberia still had a couple other athletes competing in the games. One of those is Fahnbulleh. He finished in second place in his first-round race in the 200 with a time of 20.46 seconds to cruise into the semifinals. Fahnbulleh won the NCAA championship in this event for Florida this year with a time of 19.91 seconds, so he has plenty of gas left in the tank.
Prior to these Olympics, the 19 year old told the Pioneer Press the key to his success would be to run the turn. If he does that, he'll be a medal contender — as he expects to be. He didn't get off to the best start in the first round, so he had to push it in the middle third of the race to guarantee he'd advance.
Fahnbulleh is attempting to win Liberia's first ever Olympic medal.
Bednarek, meanwhile, dominated his race throughout. The 2018 Rice Lake (Wis.) High School grad, who's running for the United States, set the tone early in his race, winning his heat in a time of 20.01 seconds — the fastest time recorded across all heats.
Next up for Bednarek and Fahnbulleh is the semifinals, which begin at 6:50 a.m. Central on Tuesday.
