Cynthia Bolingo

Cynthia Maduengele Bolingo Mbongo (born 12 January 1993), known as Cynthia Bolingo, is a now retired 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.

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. A month later, she broke it again, lowering it to 50.29 seconds. 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.

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. Early July she again sustained an injury during a 400 m race. The injury prevented her from running in both the 4 × 400 m 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.

After two more seasons riddled with injuries, Bolingo announced her retirement from the sport in August 2026.

International competitions

Records