NPC athletics championships hailed a success

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The Namibia Paralympic Committee secretary-general, Michael Hamukwaya has expressed happiness with the number of young athletes who competed at this year’s athletics championships.

The NPC held its 2022 National Athletics Championships at the Oshakati Stadium in the Oshana Region with 150 athletes competing for silverware. They were 101 males and 49 females.

Only the Otjozondjupa Region was not represented at this year’s championships.

In an interview with Nampa on Saturday, Hamukwaya said it was overwhelming to see young and upcoming athletes giving it their all and fighting for positions in the national team.

“It has been three years since we hosted our national championships and being here and having athletes from all the regions giving it their all make us proud as a federation and we look forward to seeing these numbers grow,” he said.

Hamukwaya added that more athletes with disabilities showed interest in the championship and they learned that it should not be a one-day event.

“We have several events that athletes are competing in and it looks like we are rushing some of the activities and therefore we will have to revisit how many days this event can be hosted in the future,” Hamukwaya said.

The secretary-general also added that he was impressed with how much work is being done in the regions.

“We learned that with more and more young athletes coming up, we now have to train more coaches for the regions so that these athletes are competitive and well aware of how things are done when they come for national championships or when selected to the national team,” he said.

Hamukwaya said the selection committee identified several talented athletes that will be trained to represent the country at the upcoming Under-20 Region-5 Youth Games that will be held in Malawi in December 2022.

“Several young athletes did put their hands up and that’s a good sign as they are now pushing the senior athletes, telling them ‘we are here’ – which is really good competition,” Hamukwaya said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency