KAMPALA: Irish national Kathleen Grace Noble, who successfully represented Uganda at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics summer games, has finally been granted Ugandan citizenship.
“Kathleen Grace Noble, Ugandan Olympian rower received her dual citizenship certificate yesterday [Tuesday] having applied online,” Uganda immigration office said on Wednesday.
The influential Taarifa Rwanda, a Rwandan news website with an eye in regional current affairs publishing on https://taarifa.rw/, reports that the immigration Director Maj. Gen. Apollo Kasiita-Gowa handed the certificate to an excited Kathleen.
Kathleen was born in Uganda at Kiwoko Hospital, in 1994 at present-day Nakaseke District to Irish parents, Gerry Noble, a doctor and Moira Noble, a teacher who had come to Uganda as missionaries.
She is also recognized as having achieved Uganda’s best time so far (30.80 seconds) in the 50m butterfly at the FINA World Swimming Championships.
Noble was part of the Ugandan team at the 2012 World Swimming Championship in Istanbul, Turkey.
Noble attended the then Kabira International School (now Kampala International School) between 1999 and 2004. She later joined the International School of Uganda for secondary in 2004 leaving in 2013.
She then joined Princeton University in 2014 and graduated with a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
After graduating from university, she moved to Utah where she worked as a wilderness therapy field instructor working with youth in the desert teaching survival and communication skills.
Noble’s chance for any medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games came to an end after the athlete fell short in the Repechage contest of the Women’s single sculls.
According to a Ugandan sports website, Kawowo Sports, Noble’s maiden rowing championship for Uganda was during the 2016 World Rowing U-23 event held in Rotterdam, Holland.