14 hundredths short of the perfect running fairytale. But given his biography, Dominic Lobalu can also live well with 4th place in the 5000 m race.
"Pour la Suisse, Dominic Lobalu!". That's how the stadium announcer introduced the runner. He did not know that this man was part of the refugee team in Paris, and he probably did not know that Lobalu was not just a gifted runner, but a medal candidate who would ultimately miss out on bronze, but would achieve the best athletics classification to date for the Refugee Olympic Team. And Lobalu's coach and mentor Markus Hagmann also made an announcement: "Dominic has already won the race of his life."
Fifteen minutes later, the fourth-placed athlete gave the information and repeatedly emphasized: "I'm satisfied." And you buy this statement. Anyone who knows his CV can guess that he accepts a sporting verdict on the track without any ifs or buts. He has experienced a lot of suffering and injustice in his life: His parents were shot dead.
Born in South Sudan, he was a refugee all his life, he was also not treated correctly in the Athlete Refugee Team of World Athletics (not to be confused with the Refugee Olympic Team) and finally settled in Geneva in 2019. Then, after years of legal and association-political wrangling, he was only granted the right to compete in international title competitions for Switzerland in May 2024, and ultimately the IOC did not allow him to compete as a Swiss athlete in Paris.
Against this backdrop, Lobalu can look back on a successful summer: bronze in the 5000 m at the European Championships in Rome for Swiss Athletics, gold in the 10,000 at the European Championships in Rome for Swiss Athletics, a top-class Swiss record in the 5000 m (12:50.90) in Oslo, fourth place at the Olympic Games, where he was aiming for a diploma.
A small mistake
In the end, he was just 14 hundredths short of a coup. The American Grant Fisher, who had already won bronze in the 10,000 m, caught Lobalu in the final meters. The Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen took the victory, making amends for his 4th place in the 1500 m.
Lobalu would have liked a faster race and tried in vain several times to separate the wheat from the chaff by stepping up the pace. Nevertheless, the 25-year-old was able to keep up when it came down to the wire. He tackled the last lap in 7th position, a little behind - this was probably the decisive mistake. He was not ideally positioned at that moment. Lobalu worked his way up to bronze on the home straight before he was caught and finished fourth in good "Swiss style" - like his Swiss Athletics teammates Simon Ehammer, Angelica Moser and Annik Kälin before him.
