Namibia’s para-powerlifters Gabriel Nghiishililwa and Lucas Ndahangwapo won the first silverware for Team Namibia on Saturday at the 2023 Toyota South Africa Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) National Championships.
The annual Toyota SASAPD championships which bring together athletes from nine South African provinces and other southern African countries are being held in Cape Town, South Africa till 22 March.
Team Namibia travelled with 40 athletes who are competing in para-athletics, para-powerlifting, swimming, para-cycling and goalball.
On the opening day of the championships, on Saturday Nghiishililwa and Ndahangwapo won gold medals in their respective categories of the men’s 80 kilogrammes (kg), and 88kg respectively.
Meanwhile, the male and female goalball teams made history when they competed in their first competitive games after two months of training.
The male team which is competing in the junior category opened its match against Limpopo Province and found the going tough as they went down 3-13 while the junior female team picked up three points after their opponents North West did not pitch up.
In an interview with Nampa on Saturday, team manager of Team Namibia on this trip Jean-Paul Schmidt said winning medals in the powerlifting category is a move in the right direction.
“This is the first step into our 1 000 steps. We are moving in the right direction for what we want to achieve. Some of the sport codes that we brought here might qualify us for the Commonwealth Games in Australia, therefore we are going to work hard in trying to realise our dream of having many codes representing the Namibia Paralympic Committee at different international competitions,” said Schmidt.
Other countries expected to compete at the 2023 SASAPD National Championships are Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Cameroon and Botswana, alongside the nine South African provinces.
In 2022, Namibian athletes with disabilities won 30 medals at the Toyota SASAPD in Johannesburg, South Africa. They bagged 20 gold, three silver and seven bronze medals.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
