| Perina Lokure Nakang | |
| Sport: | Athletics |
| Event: | Middle-distance running |
| Pb: | 800m: 2:12.74 (Nairobi, 2024) |
Perina Lokure Nakang (born 2003) is a middle-distance runner from South Sudan.[1]
Born in South Sudan, she left to seek sanctuary in Kenya with her aunt in 2010 at the age of seven years-old due to the conflict in her home country. They lived in a UNHCR refugee camp in Kakuma, northern Kenya. She was later reunited with her mother and four siblings, although her father died after she had fled. She attended the boarding school the All4Running Shoes4Africa Secondary School in Kapsabet, Kenya.[2] [3]
Part of the World Athletics U20 refugee programme and the African Higher Education in Emergencies Network (AHEEN) and Youth Education and Sports (YES). She is coached by Janeth Jepkosgei in a group that also contains Brenda Chebet and Nelly Chepchirchir. She finished seventh at the Kenyan national trials 800m race in 2023.[4] She competed in the 800 metres at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.[5] [6] [7]
She competed at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Belgrade in 2024 as part of the World Athletics Athlete Refugee Team.[8]
In May 2024, she was confirmed on the IOC Refugee Team for the 2024 Paris Olympics.[9]
She was one of four featured refugee athletes on a promotional video entitled Watch Where We're Going made by Nike in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam designed to highlight the experiences of discrimination and prejudice faced by refugees.[10]