Naimhwaka happy with athletes’ performance in Botswana

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Athletics Namibia (AN) President, Erwin Naimhwaka, has expressed happiness with the way Namibian athletes performed at the one-day international championship held over the weekend in Gaborone, Botswana.

The Gaborone International Meet, which attracted athletes from over 10 countries across the globe, is a World Athletics Continental Tour that is classified in the bronze category and was held on Saturday at the National Stadium.

The event saw several Namibian athletes running national records as well as their season-best in some of the events.

In an interview with Nampa on Sunday, the AN president said as a federation they are very happy with the overall performances of the athletes and the team that represented the country at the event.

“It is what we want to see, that when the athletes get such opportunities, they make use of them to improve and use it as a platform to create further opportunities for themselves,” Naimhwaka said.

He added that the performances show that the standards of Namibian athletes are converging to the best in the region.

“I’m extremely happy for the national records by Mahmad Bock, Christine Mboma and all the performances. David Dam did a huge personal best, so did Frieda Iithete in the long jump and men’s jumpers also gave a good account of themselves,” he said, adding that 1 500 metre runners Daniel Paulus and Simon Daniel also did very well.

Naimhwaka stated that AN will continue strengthening competitions locally, which in the end will enable Namibian athletes to grow in confidence when taking on their regional peers.

At the Gaborone International Meet, Mboma set up a new national record of 10.97 seconds in 100m, breaking the previous record set by her teammate Beatrice Masilingi in Nairobi Kenya in 2021 of 11.20 seconds.

Bock, meanwhile, broke a national record that has been standing for the past 42 years when he clocked 45.80 seconds in the 400m men’s B National race. He broke the previous record of 46.14 seconds which was set by Daniel Haitembu on 26 April 1980 in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency