Namibia’s legendary sprinter Frank Fredericks, along with a horde of other global sport icons, have taken the lead role in motivating, educating and cheering athletes on during this dark period of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has sent thousands of athletes into self-isolation the world over.
The coronavirus pandemic, officially and medically known as Covid-19, has also seen tons of major sporting events being either cancelled, postponed or rescheduled due to the crippling effects and disruption caused by the deadly virus, which equally saw the hosting dates of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games being pushed to next year.
Fredericks, one of Namibia’s most decorated athletes of all time and so far the country’s only Olympic medalist, has for the past few days been taking to his social media platforms such as Facebook and others to encourage athletes and all Namibians to stay home and remain safe during this period of self-isolation.
Besides remaining home and making sure they keep safe, the 52-year old Namibian four-time Olympic silver medalist also used his influence and social media outreach to motivate athletes to remain active at all times from within their respective homes.
He posted a series of short videos on social media demonstrating how athletes and individuals can remain active at home this lockdown period through light and short physical exercises such as normal pushups, knee pushups, bicycle crunch, triceps dips and many other different home exercises.
To ensure his message gets across to many as possible, Fredericks opted to nominate other local influencers such as para-athlete Johannes Nambala, former Brave Warriors goalkeeper Ronnie Kanalelo, former Brave Warriors striker Dokkies Schmidt, sprinter Tjipee Herunga, former Namibia Premier League (NPL) chairman Johnny Doeseb including business personalities to all post their individual videos on social media where they are exercising or keeping active at home.
Other local sport stars such as foreign-based footballers Zenatha Coleman, Petrus Shitembi, Benson Shilongo and Brave Warriors great Colin Benjamin among many others have all taken to social media to share the same message, while on the global front sport icons such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and others have all taken the lead in that regard.
The coronavirus has infected over 803,000 people and killed more than 39,000 worldwide, according to figures made public a few days ago, while it has hit at least 178 countries and territories globally.
-ohembapu@nepc.com.na