Cynthia Maduengele Bolingo Mbongo (born 12 January 1993),[1] known as Cynthia Bolingo, is a Belgian sprinter. In a career beset with injuries, she won the silver medal in the 400 metres at the 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships and the bronze medal in the 4 × 400 metres at the 2024 European Athletics Championships.
Bolingo competed in the 200 metres at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing without advancing from the first round.
A few weeks after winning that silver medal in the 400 metres at the 2019 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Bolingo felt a pain in her Achilles that got worse and worse and finally forced her to scrap the entire 2019 season. It would be 18 months before she ran in competition again.[2]
On 1 June 2021, she broke the Belgian record on the 400 metres at a meeting in Montreuil, France; with a time of 50 seconds and 75 hundreds, she improved upon the 16-year-old time of 51 seconds 45 hundreds by Kim Gevaert, and qualified to compete at the 2020 Olympics.[3] A month later, she broke it again, lowering it to 50.29 seconds.[4] But then, in the final run-up for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, she sustained a hamstring injury in training camp in Mito, Japan, making it impossible for her to run at the Olympics.[5]
On 22 August 2023 she qualified for the 400 m final of the world championships by setting a time of 49 s 96 in the semi-final, improving her Belgian record and becoming the first Belgian to reach the final of a 400 metres at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest.
In June 2024, she was on the Belgian 4 × 400 metres women's relay team that won a bronze medal at the European Athletics Championships.[6] Early July she again sustained an injury during a 400 m race.[7] The injury prevented her from running in both the 4x400 women's and mixed relays at the 2024 Summer Olympics denting Belgian teams's chances for a medal. In the only race she did compete in at the Olympics, the women's 400 metres, an obviously not fit Bolingo finished a disappointing 42nd in the heats.[8]
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| Épreuves | Temps | Lieu | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60 m | indoor | 7 s 25 |  Belgium Louvain-La-Neuve
|
2022 |
| 100 m | outdoor | 11 s 28 | Belgium Nivelles
|
2021 |
| 200 m | outdoor | 22 s 79 | Belgium Nivelles
|
2021 |
| indoor | 24 s 92 | Belgium Ghent
|
2011 | |
| 400 m | outdoor | 49 s 96 (NR) |  Hungary Budapest
|
2023 |
| indoor | 51 s 62 (NR) |  United Kingdom Glasgow
|
2019 | |
| 4 × 400 m relay | outdoor | 3 min 22 s 12 (NR) |  Germany Munich
|
2022 |
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