CNN- A Somali sports official was suspended for nepotism on Wednesday after a viral video showed an apparent novice runner skipping across the finish line in last place at an international competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video, which circulated widely on Wednesday, showed Nasro Abukar Ali competing in the third heat of the first round of the women\u2019s 100-meter race at the International University Sports Federation\u2019s (FISU) Summer World University Games in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali starts sluggishly out of the blocks as the other runners burst forward, and quickly fades far behind the pack before jogging toward the finish line and ending with a small skip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She finished in 21.81 seconds \u2013 more than 8 seconds slower than the second-last runner, and more than 10 seconds behind the winner of the heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The video immediately made waves on social media, prompting ridicule, disbelief, and for some, anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disheartening to witness such an incompetent government. How could they select an untrained girl to represent Somalia in running?\u201d one person wrote on Twitter, now known as X, in a post with more than 47 million likes. \u201cIt\u2019s truly shocking and reflects poorly on our country internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Somalia said it had suspended Khadijo Aden Dahir, the chairwoman of the Somali Athletics Federation. It alleged Dahir had engaged in \u201cacts of abuse of power, nepotism, and defaming the name of the nation in international arena,\u201d in a letter addressed to the Somali National Olympic Committee and tweeted by the ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somali Minster of Youth and Sports Mohamed Barre Mohamud said Ali was not a \u201csports person nor a runner.\u201d According to Forbes, Mohamud had earlier \u201capologized\u201d for the incident in a Facebook video. \u201cWhat happened today was not representative of the Somali people,\u201d he said in Somali, Forbes reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though his letter referred to nepotism, no direct link was made between Dahir and Ali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, the Association of Somalia Universities said in a statement it had not sent any runners to the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maya Hawke, Alexander Skarsgard and Zoe Kravitz
Why everyone’s talking about ‘nepo babies’
In Wednesday\u2019s letter, the Ministry of Youth and Sports said an investigation found there was no \u201cregistered Somali University Sports Association,\u201d without elaborating on the association and its role in the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The letter added that the ministry intends to \u201cpursue legal action against both the Chairman of the Athletics Federation of Somalia and individuals responsible for falsification of the Somali University Sports Association.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CNN has reached out to Mohamud for comment through the East African country\u2019s Sports Ministry, and to the organizers of the FISU event, the Somali National Olympic Committee, Somali Athletics Federation and World Athletics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Summer World University Games are ongoing in Chengdu, southwestern China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CNN\u2019s Savanna Stewart, Sahil Kurup and Wayne Sterling contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNN- A Somali sports official was suspended for nepotism on Wednesday after a viral video showed an apparent novice runner skipping across the finish line in last place at an international competition. The video, which circulated widely on Wednesday, showed Nasro Abukar Ali competing in the third heat of the first round of the women\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/nasro.jpg?fit=621%2C415","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89N1L-dEH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52495"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52497,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52495\/revisions\/52497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.daafeet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}