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Namibian athletes with disabilities won 10 medals on the opening day of the World Para Athletics (WPA) 2023 Jesolo Grand Prix underway in Jesolo, Italy.

The fifth round of the WPA Grand Prix is being held at the Armando Picchi Stadium as Para-athletes celebrate the 10th anniversary of the WPA Grand Prix.

On the opening day of the championship on Friday evening, Namibia’s track and field athletes walked away with 10 medals (five gold, three silver and two bronze) from the 100 metres (m) and 400m events.

The first athlete to win a medal for Team Namibia was T11 female sprinter, Lahja Ishitile, who scooped a gold medal in the 400m sprint with a time of one minute, one second and 17 tenths of a second (01:01.17). Her second gold medal was in the 100m sprint with a time of 12.95 seconds.

Meanwhile, another female sprinter, Lahja Ipinge, who competes in the T12 category, was disqualified in the 400m race, while in the 100m race, she finished fifth with a time of 13.58 seconds. World record holder and Cuban sprinter Omara Elias Durand won the T12 100m race with a time of 12.11 seconds.

In the T11 100m men’s category, Namibian athletes dominated the track after occupying all three podium places. Ananias Shikongo won gold, while Chris Kinda and Alfredo Bernado came second and third respectively.

T13 sprinter, Johannes Nambala, added two more medals to team Namibia’s tally with a gold in the 400m sprint and a silver in the 100m. French sprinter Axel Zorzi took the gold in the 100m with 11.24 seconds while the Namibian was just behind in a photo finish with a time of 11.26 seconds.

The T11 400m category, saw Kinda taking a silver medal with a time of 53.49 seconds, while Shikongo took the bronze with a time of 54.01 seconds. Eduardo Man Novas Uceda of Spain walked away with a gold medal in a time of 53.42 seconds.

Bradley Murere braved the rainy conditions in the 100m sprint. The Namibian sprinter who competes in the T46 category clocked a time of 11.36 seconds to walk away with a gold medal.

Meanwhile, T37 sprinter, Petrus Karuli, had an impressive start to his 400m race but pulled a muscle with 120m to go, which saw him settling for a silver medal. Karuli was disqualified for a false start in the 100m sprint.

Nine athletes and five guides are representing Team Namibia at the championship.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

Namibian athletes and their management team arrived in Italy on Monday night for the fourth round of the World Para Athletics (WPA) Grand Prix that will be held in the city of Jesolo, Italy.

The fourth round of the WPA Grand Prix will be held from 12 to 14 May 2023 at the Armando Picchi Stadium.

From February to May this year, four cities around the world welcomed Para-athletes as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the WPA Grand Prix. At the fifth Grand Prix of the year, Team Namibia will be represented by nine athletes and five guides over the three days of competition.

Speaking to Nampa on Tuesday, the team’s Chef de Mission for the games Jean-Paul Schmidt who is the treasurer for the Namibia Paralympic Committee (NPC), said coming to Europe is meant to prepare athletes well ahead of the World Championships.

“As a body that wants to grow, we are happy to see all our athletes ranked in the top 10 in their respective categories made the trip. Our goal is to compete with the best in the world and improve the number of slot allocations to us as a country ahead of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games,” he said.

Schmidt added that the NPC hopes for all its athletes to be at their best during the 2023 International Paralympic Committee World Athletics Championships in France.

“The team has arrived in Italy but there are still small logistics that we are dealing with back at home. I am hopeful that come competition day everything would have been sorted out and our athletes will be winning silverware for us in Italy before we proceed to Notwil, Switzerland for our last Grand Prix before the World Champs,” Schmidt said.

Namibian athletes who travelled with the team are T11 male sprinters, Ananias Shikongo, Kinda Chris, and Alfredo Bernado, T11 female sprinter Lahja Ishitile, and T12 sprinter Lahja Ipinge, T13 sprinter Johannes Nambala, T47 sprinter Bradley Murere, T37 sprinter Petrus Karuli, and T64 sprinter Denzel Namene.

The athletes are accompanied by guides Even Tjiuiju, Hatango Murere, Kelvin Goagoseb, Philipus Paulus and Sem Shimanda.

The management team consists of Schmidt, team manager Michael Hamukwaya, Ruan Mocke (physiotherapist), Letu Hamhola (head coach) and Naomi Schmidt (assistant coach).

Source: Namibia Press Agency

The Namibia Paralympic Committee (NPC) is hard at work as it has set its sight on taking a bigger group of athletes to the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships slated for Paris, France in July.

A group of nine athletes and five guides will travel to Italy and Switzerland to compete at the 2023 Jesolo Grand Prix and the 2023 Nottwil Grand Prix in the month of May.

According to Michael Hamukwaya, NPC secretary-general and Team Manager for the European Tour, on Saturday, the committee is taking athletes on a European Tour as part of its preparation for the upcoming International Paralympic Committee (IPC), World Para Athletics Championships.

“After the Para Games in 2021, we selected a team of athletes at our National Championships held in Oshakati in 2022 and a number of those selected athletes competed at the Marrakech Grand Prix in Morocco, where the team was trimmed to this number that will be touring Europe,” he said.

Hamukwaya added that for its pathway to the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, they assembled a group of elite athletes who ranked in the top 10 rankings of the IPC in their different categories.

“These athletes should challenge themselves again the best in the world. Our goal at the world champs is to fight for podium positions and get more slots allocated to the NPC for the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games,” said Hamukwaya.

The NPC secretary-general added that as a federation they want to improve from the three slots they had at the 2020 Tokyo, Paralympic Games to six slots in athletics and at least one in swimming at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games.

At the World Athletics Championships held in Dubai in 2019, Namibia ended up having one slot for the Tokyo, Paralympic Games and after competing at some Grand Prix locally, the athletes improved their ranking and were awarded two more slots at the Paralympic Games.

Team Namibia departs for Jesolo, Italy on 07 May 2023 from Pretoria, South Africa, where it has been in camp. From Italy, the team will travel to Nottwil, Switzerland on 22 May, before returning to Namibia on 29 May 2023.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

Fifteen players have been selected from the South-West zone for the final of the maiden Global Grassroots Football Tournament (GGFT) scheduled to take place in Abuja on May 17.

Joseph Ombugala, Chief Zonal Coordinator, Global Grassroots Football Tournament, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) over the telephone on Sunday that the 15 players were chosen on merit.

“We saw players in the South-West that think with their feet,” he said.

Ombugala said that 60 players from the six states of the South-West zone participated in the rigorous selection process which eventually produced 15 players.

“So far, we have concluded South-South and South-East with seven and eight best players selected respectively for the final in Abuja.

“From South-South, we arrived South-West, using Obasanjo’s farm in Ogun State as base.

“When we came, we saw 60 selected best of best players ready for the tournament at Obasanjo’s farm.

“From the 60 players, Uchendu Nwabara, Proprietor of Prestige Football Academy, Abuja, myself and the Chief Scout, Yahaya Adamu, worked together to pick 15.

“We worked without sentiment. We saw talents and we were amazed with what we saw in the South-West,” Ombugala said.

According to him, none of the players that emerged from the scouting process will be rejected going by the quality of talents on parade.

He said that players so far selected were presumed the best and would in no distant time play for the country’s various national teams.

“We believe that none of the players we selected in the various zones will be rejected by foreign scouts because we worked without bias.

“We can decide to leave a zone if we don’t see quality players because a lot of people are coming to watch the final in Abuja and we won’t want to feed them with underperforming players.

“This is one of the best scouting programme I have ever seen in Nigeria and we hope to sustain it on annual basis.

“We are here to select and give opportunity to the best players to showcase themselves. These players performance in the future will go a long way to show what we have done.

“We hope that players that emerge from our tournament will win Africa and World footballers award,” Ombugala said.

NAN reports that the tournament moves to North-East (Bauchi) zone beginning from May 8, after its successful outing in South-West.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Athletics coach Henk Botha says his recently acquired International Coaching Enrichment Certificate Programme (ICECP) diploma will help him grow as an individual, as well as help many Namibian athletes.

The ICECP honoured members of its XII (12) and XIII (13) classes at a ceremony held on 24 April 2023 at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The course provided national-level coaches with enhanced coaching and leadership skills, along with the latest coaching principles from the University of Delaware, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and Olympic Solidarity (a department of the IOC).

The intended outcome of the course is to assist national-level coaches in developing proficiency in the areas of sport sciences, talent identification, coaching education, management, athlete development, safe sport principles and grassroots sports development.

In an interview with Nampa on Wednesday, Botha said he was happy to acquire the qualification as it is life-changing for him and the athletes he will be working with in Namibia.

“It was tremendous, we did a lot of modern coaching techniques which enriched me as a coach. I am better off as a coach and I can provide for my athletes, as well as other athletes in Namibia,” he said.

He added that attending the course connected him to several coaches around the world who he believes will work well with him, as well as help the different sports codes in future.

“I have set up links with other sports codes who can come help us in Namibia. I have also been approached by the Bangladesh Athletics Federation to assist them with their sprint athletes. Through this programme I have been in contact with European Athletics who want to add us to a coaching forum as a country where we can share information which in the end will help us become better,” said Botha.

The ICECP saw 31 coaches from 27 nations receive diplomas in 17 different sports codes. Since its inception in 2008, a total of 457 participants from 125 nations and 39 sports have graduated from the programme.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

Junior athletes representing Namibia at the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) championships underway in Lusaka, Zambia put in impressive performances to reach the next round of the competition.

The African Junior Athletics Championships is a biennial continental athletics event for junior athletes from African nations, competing in silverware.

This year’s combined Under 18-20 (U18-20) championship is being held in Lusaka from 29 April to 03 May. Team Namibia travelled with 11 athletes competing in the track and field events.

On the opening day of the championships on Saturday, Namibian athletes competing in the U18 and U20, 100 metres (m) reached the semi-finals after running good times in their respective heats.

U18 women 100m sprinter Julie-Ann Schuster reached the semi-final of her event after finishing fourth in heat five with a time of 12.57 seconds while in the U20 100m men category Wilbard Hamukondo qualified for the semi-finals after finishing third in heat three with a time of 11.00 seconds and Walter Geinub also reached the semi-finals with an impressive run of 11.03 seconds despite finishing fourth in heat four.

Athletes who competed in the high jump and middle-distance events found the going tough and failed to win silverware in their respective categories which were finals.

Namibia’s sensational middle-distance runner Nyanyukweni Frans found the going tough from Ethiopians, Ugandans and Kenyans who took up the podium places in the 1500m run as she completed the race out of the top seven.

In an interview with Nampa on Sunday, Erongo Region’s sports officer in Omaruru and a board member of Athletics Namibia, Berthold Karumendu said the level at which Namibian athletes are currently competing at the CAA Youth Championships is very high.

“Some of the athletes found it hard to handle but I am happy that they are now exposed to these competitions which will help them in future,” he said.

He added that the high jump event saw the winner jumping 2.05m and the Namibian athlete could not reach that standard as he was knocked out earlier but the knowledge gained from this event will help him grow into a better athlete.

“I am hopeful that athletes that will compete on Monday and Tuesday will give us podium performances and probably come home with a medal,” Berthold said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency