Maurice Kambukwe
The Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) and Namibia Schools Sport Union (NSSU) yesterday jointly announced a group of 270 athletes selected from last year’s MTC Namibia Youth Games held in Rietfontein in the Otjozondjupa region.
The youth games took place from 16-18 December last year and saw athletes competing in 10 sports codes during the three-day competition.
Announcing the names of the selected athletes during yesterday’s presser in the capital, NSC chief administrator Freddy Mwiya said the selected 270 athletes will attend different training camps to be held across the country ahead of the African Union Sport Councils (AUSC) Region 5 Youth Games slated for Maseru, Lesotho in December this year, where Namibia will also participate.
The planned training camps, Mwiya said, will start early in April to afford the selected athletes and national selectors ample time to thoroughly assess the group before trimming it down to less than 200 athletes that will form part of the final group to represent Namibia in Maseru come December.
“The team will attend various training camps starting from April and another one is planned for the August holidays. The selected group will however be trimmed to a lesser number that won’t exceed 200 athletes, which is due to the small budget that we have,” said Mwiya.
Mwiya said the NSC will now give authority to sport federations in all regions to continue training these athletes while working closely with the NSC to ensure athletes are kept fit.
“We did not do well at the previous edition of the Region 5 Youth Games; we therefore want to improve on our previous performance and do well at this year’s games. We target to obtain gold medals and to continue producing elite athletes,” he added.
-mkambukwe@nepc.com.na