The chairperson of the Namibia Annual Sports Awards judging panel, Lesley Tjiueza, has called on sports administrators to put more effort into their entries for the awards.

Tjiueza said this on Monday while announcing the nominees for the 17th edition of the NASA, taking place in Windhoek on 30 October.

The judging panel chairperson said the annual sport awards are fundamental to the development and upliftment of athletes as knowing that there is an incentive at the end of the day, pushes them to do their best.

“This year we had 68 entries in all categories. It was a difficult task to go through all the entries. We have an auditing firm that will be editing all the work we do, but there is one thing we found while going through the files and that is that some administrators are letting down their athletes as they submit incomplete forms,” he said.

He added that some of the administrators filed entries without statistics or the entries are not motivated.

“You just find that this athlete has been entered but there is nothing motivating why they should be nominated or given a fair chance and there is nothing we can do as judges when an athlete’s form is incomplete. Administrators are robbing these athletes of a chance to win an award recognising them for doing well as this incomplete form does not make it against the ones that are well completed, with good motivations,” Tjiueza said.

He further said all athletes deserve to be given a fair chance and therefore administrators must make time and give athletes from their federations a fair chance to compete with the rest when completing entry forms for the awards.

The venue for this year’s Namibia Annual Sport Awards is still to be announced.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency