The 3×3 national wheelchair basketball team found the going tough at its maiden international competition, finishing fourth out of five teams that competed in the 2022 Africa Commonwealth Games qualifiers.

The Africa Zone’s qualification tournament for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games 3×3 wheelchair basketball was held at the Vodacom Mandeville Indoor Sports Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa on Saturday.

Namibia, Gambia, Kenya, Rwanda and host South Africa competed in the men’s category while South Africa and Kenya were the only countries with teams in the women’s category.

Team Namibia started the championships with a win against Rwanda but lady luck was not on their side as they ended up losing their remaining three games.

Their biggest defeat at the competition came at the hands of South Africa who beat them 01-21 while Kenya beat them 01-11 and Gambia topped it up with 0-12 as Namibia failed to score a single basket.

The South African men’s beat Kenya in the final game of the competition to win the championship and represent the zone in July next year in Birmingham, the United Kingdom, while in the women category South Africa and Kenya played each other three times and the host nation won all the games to book themselves a spot at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

In the men’s category, Kenya were the runners up followed by Gambia in third, Namibia in fourth and Rwanda who failed to win a game in the last position.

In an interview with Nampa after the championships, Namibia Wheelchair Basketball president and assistant coach of the team Isaac Nailenge said the team learned the hard way how the game is played at the international level.

“They played the first game well but they did not follow instructions in the rest of the games. They just needed to play based on instructions but they just didn’t and they now have a lot of work to do,” he said.

Team Namibia was represented by Ingo David, Termus Festus, Roodly Gowaseb and Kamenye Kapuma.

Nailange coached the team with the assistance of Henock Hanga.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency