WINDHOEK – The Tertiary Institutes Sport Association of Namibia (TISAN) has started vigorous preparations to participate in the 17th edition of the Confederation of Universities and Colleges of Southern Africa (CUCSA), slated for June 2014 at the University of Zambia (UNZA) in Lusaka.
The team has vowed to dominate all sport codes in which it will participate hence the early preparations. “As a member of CUCSA, it is expected of TISAN to participate in the bi-annual student games in sports associations from the participating countries that will be vying for top honours in seven sports codes. Event organizers hope to attract all 14 member countries of zone IV tertiary institutions to showcase their sport products. Namibia’s male soccer team has won the gold medal consecutively for the last three tournaments. Namibia successfully hosted the coveted sub-regional games two years ago in Windhoek. The games are seen as a springboard to the continental games that are slated for Egypt towards the end of the year. One team, from the five sub-regions of the continent locks horns with the best of the world in Daegu Korea in 2015. The team will be headed by TISAN President, Werner Jeffery, with 6 members of the technical team together with officials responsible for different sport codes such as soccer, netball, volleyball, basketball, athletics, tennis, table tennis and chess for both male and female participants. The team will comprises of 205 athletes with 60 officials, including the referees and umpires for the different disciplines, as well as a media team. Rugby will be the non-medal sport code, which event organizers, hope to promote extensively during this year’s CUCSA Games.
TISAN’s men’s soccer team coach, Willem Kapukare, who has been mentoring the team for the past 15 years, says his team wants to defend the CUCSA title, which it successfully defended for three consecutive years. With years of experience as a soccer coach for various local premier League clubs, Kapukare currently serves as a Fifa coaching instructor for the Namibia Football Association (NFA). “I can promise you that the team will go out of its way to defend the title and bring it back to Namibia for a fourth time. I know this competition is the benchmark for TISAN’s participation in the FASU and eventually FISU competition next year, but it is my conviction, that our male soccer team has been performing much better in the past few years than the other sports codes,” said Kapukare. Meanwhile, TISAN’s netball team coach, Manuelle Tjivera, who has been coaching the team for the last nine years, promised to send young talented girls to Lusaka to compete for gold during the games instead of just making up numbers. “Four girls were selected from TISAN in the Under-20 national team in Glasgow, Scotland in October last year,” boasted Tjivera, who had nothing but well wishes towards the University of Namibia student who received a scholarship to go and study and play netball overseas. When asked about the team’s readiness for the games, TISAN President Jeffery assured the nation that participants endured long hours of training to be in good shape when the games eventually commence. “The experience that the Namibian contingent has developed after successfully hosting the CUCSA games two years ago at the University of Namibia (Unam), as well as their participation in last year’s International University Sport Federation (FISU) in the city of Kazan in the Federal Republic of Russia is immense,” he said.
By Staff Reporter