Namibian speedster Beatrice Masilingi has returned to training and is in high spirits, preparing for upcoming major international competitions.

A few weeks ago, Masilingi, who ran a personal best of 22:28 seconds at last year’s Tokyo Olympics finishing sixth overall in the women’s 200m final, suffered a hamstring injury and was forced to miss out on the second leg of the Athletics Namibia (AN) Coca-Cola Grand Prix held in Windhoek.

Masilingi has since been well on the mend, and her coach Henk Botha yesterday confirmed to this publication that the young sprinter has recovered and is now back in training.

“Beatrice has excellently recovered; even faster than we expected. She is now training almost at 100% again and that is good news. We now just hope she will remain 100% ready for the coming competitions, as we are looking forward to compete in a few of them [international competitions],” said Botha.

Masilingi and teammate Christine Mboma – the Tokyo Olympics 200m silver medalist – are considering a few international competitions slated for Botswana and South Africa.

“As far as our preparations for the various upcoming international competitions, we have received a few invitations and are now just weighing our options before deciding which event we will partake in. As soon as we have everything in order, we will make an official announcement on when we plan on leaving to compete.”

“The competition in Botswana is of international bronze status. It’s known as the (World Athletics) Gaborone Continental Tour, while the one in South Africa will be a Grand Prix. The invitations are here, it is now up to us to decide whether to compete or not,” added Botha. - mkambukwe@nepc.com.na