Athletics Namibia (AN) president, Erwin Naimhwaka says the consecutive AN grand prix will help improve the performance and fitness of athletes ahead of the National Athletics Championship slated for April.

AN hosted its third grand prix of the season on Saturday at the Independence Stadium in Windhoek, where athletes showed impressive performances, especially in long-distance events.

In an interview with Nampa alongside the championship, Naimhwaka said there is body and competition fitness that athletes require and athletes being in competition almost every second week improves their competition fitness drastically.

“With these competitions, I am hopeful that when the nationals come, we will see athletes clocking better times because in the past we had competitions that were far apart from each other and this affected the times that were run at the nationals,” he said.

He added that every athlete wants to qualify for bigger competitions all the time and at competitions like this they give it their best with the hope of performing better at the nationals, as well as getting an opportunity to run qualifying times for the Commonwealth Games.

Berthold Karumendu, Sports Officer for the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service in Omaruru and a board member at AN, said the purpose of the consecutive races is to keep athletes busy and give them enough time to qualify for international competitions.

“The times that our athletes are currently running are not bad. They are coming race by race and we hope after April these athletes will be ready to compete outside the country and probably get a team that will meet the qualifying requirements for Commonwealth Games and other international competitions,” Karumendu said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency