Team Namibia started with their activities at the 2020 Paralympic Games underway in Tokyo, Japan on Friday morning.

T11 sprinter and longer jumper Lahja Ishitile and her guide Sydney Kamuaruuma competed in the long jump and in round one of the 400 metres (m) heats.

In the long jump category, the Namibian athlete finished seventh out of the eight athletes that competed in the event. She jumped 4.52m on her last attempt which was also her best jump of the event.

She was just a couple of metres shy of the winning jump of Silvania de Oliveira Costa of Brazil who won the gold medal with a seasonal best jump of 5.00m. De Oliveira Costa is also the world record holder with a jump of 5.46m which she set in July 2016 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Asila Mirzayorova of Azerbaijan took silver with a jump of 4.86m which was her personal person while Ukraine’s Yuliia Pavlenko won the bronze with a jump of 4.86m.

Just after completing her long jump event Ishitile and her guide Kamuaruuma rushed off to the 400m sprint event where they competed in round one, heat two and ran a seasonal best of 59.94 seconds to qualify to the semi-finals that will be held later on Friday afternoon at 12h40 Namibian time.

Speaking after the race Ishitile and her guide Kamuaruuma told Nampa that they had a hectic morning and did not have enough time to even prepare for their 400m sprint.

“We just finished off the long jump and had to run to the call room for our 400m event. We did not even warm up and the cramps are now kicking in especially for Lahja (Ishitile),” said Kamuaruuma.

Meanwhile, Ishitile added that they are looking forward to the semi-finals that are scheduled for the afternoon and hopefully it will be better than their first-round heat.

Source: Namibia Press Agency