The Minister of Sport, Youth and National Service, Agnes Tjongarero said during the welcoming ceremony of the Namibian Olympians on Tuesday that only sports can unite this nation.

Athletes that competed in the track event and marathon running arrived back from Tokyo, Japan on Tuesday.

Speaking at the welcoming event, Tjongarero said she does not know about other countries but in Namibia, only sports can act as a unifier.

“Sports united a whole nation during the Olympic Games and we are still united as we are here. It has been a long time since this country celebrated an Olympic medal and every Namibian in this vast land of us was offering a silent prayer for our athletes (Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi) to go through to the next round of their 200m event,” she said.

Tjongarero added that the achievements at the 2020 Olympic Games is the beginning and there is still a lot of work to be done.

“Therefore, the Namibian government through the ministry of sports will give every Namibian child an opportunity to participate in sports,” she said.

Echoing the minister’s sentiments was Mboma and Masilingi’s coach, Henk Botha, who said the girls’ performance at the competition saw a lot of Namibians coming together to rally behind them.

“We had a meeting before the race and I told the girls I have never pressurised them for medals and I have never asked them for records but to just do your best. But I am now going to ask you to run for a medal because you can see what we have done already with people calling us from all over Namibia and in some type of way we have united Namibia through sports,” he said.

Mboma became the first female and second Namibian athlete to win a medal at the Olympic Games, after Frank Fredericks, who won two silver medals at both 1992 and 1996 editions of the quadrennial showpiece.

Source: Namibia Press Agency