Otniel Hembapu
Windhoek-A recent schoolboy error by the Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) and Athletics Namibia (AN), which robbed athletes of a lifetime opportunity to represent their country at the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games, has been labelled as nothing but poor administration from both sides.
Just recently, disgruntled parents, athletics coaches and observers fumed at the NNOC for omitting the names of deserving athletes from the list of Team Namibia travelling to the Bahamas to represent the country at the Commonwealth Youth Games.
The NNOC released the ‘wrong’ list of athletes’ names to the media and the public in general, particularly the athletes that were going to represent the country in the athletics category, claiming the names released were indeed from the original list received from AN.
The athletes on the NNOC list were Ivan Geldenhuys, Natalie Louw and Albertus Smith but the actual names on the original list submitted by AN listed Sade de Sousa, Theron Human and Ivan Geldenhuys as the three athletes to represent the country in athletics in the Bahamas.
Due to mounting pressure from the media and public, and also partly thanks to the Namibia Sports Commission, both the NNOC and AN yesterday released hurriedly penned statements trying to sugarcoat their blunder as apparently a result of ‘poor communication’ from both parties.
The NNOC claimed they went ahead with the first list of athletes’ names they got from AN – which contained the wrong names – but when AN noticed they had submitted the wrong names to the NNOC, they tried resubmitting the correct list but their efforts fell through as it was already past the athletes’ accreditation deadline for the competition.
Whatever their explanation is, the chief administrator of the NSC, Freddie Mwiya, yesterday strongly condemned the error as unacceptable and a pure lack of getting the basics right.
Without being political about the true nature of the incident, Mwiya said referring to the incident as a ‘lack of communication’ between the NNOC and AN would be beating about the bush as the mistake clearly bears all the hallmarks of poor administration, poor planning and pure lack of concentration.
The main bone of contention was the surprise omission of emerging sprinter Sade de Sousa, whose name was removed from the list by the NNOC despite being the most deserving athlete to be on that list and a serious medal hopeful.