Namibian athletes with a disability won 42 medals at the just-ended 2023 Toyota South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) National Championships in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 2023 edition of the annual championships, which bring together athletes from nine South African provinces and other Southern African countries was held from 17 to 22 March at the Green Point Stadium.

Team Namibia competed in five sports codes which are; swimming, powerlifting, hand-cycling, goalball and athletics.

Namibian powerlifters won the country’s first two medals on the opening day of the championships. At the same time, swimmers, hand-cyclists and track and field athletes raked in 26 more medals on day two of the event.

The last two days of the championship on Monday and Tuesday saw the track and field athletes winning 17 more medals to bring the total tally to 45 medals after four days of competition.

On Monday and Tuesday at the track and field events T12 athlete Lahja Ipinge, won gold in 200 metres (m) sprint and a silver in the 400m of the Under-20 category. Ipinge finished the 400m race in first position with a time of one minute, and two seconds but based on the Raza scoring system she could only be awarded gold in that event.

Other athletes that walked away with gold medals in the 200m category are T46 sprinter Lize Meyer, T11 Ananias Shikongo, T13 Johannes Nambala, T37 Petrus Karuli, and T11 Lahja Ishitile.

T11 sprinter Alfredo Bernado, and T12 Christopher Marungu all won silver medals in their respective categories in the 200m sprint.

In the 400m events, Namibia’s gold came from Shikongo, Ishitile, Nambala and Karuli while Marungu and Chris Kinda won silver.

In the long jump mixed categories of the T42 and T37 athletes, Namibia’s T42 athlete Martha Nengola won gold while T37 Natascha Kakololo took bronze.

T44 athlete Denzel Namene finished fourth in the 200m sprints while T46 Lize Meyer ran a time of 01:06 seconds in the 400m race which did not qualify her for a medal based on the Raza point system. Her time was ranked fourth overall.

Namibia won 27 gold, 12 silver and six bronze.

Team Namibia travelled with 40 athletes for the championships. Track and field athletes used this championship as part of their preparation for the upcoming International Paralympic Committee World Athletics Championships scheduled for Paris, France in July.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency