Archive - Mar 2010 - Story

Funds for Namibia Premier League clubs have dried up and they will now have to do without their monthly grant of N$30 000 till the end of the season.

According to a club spokesman, who preferred to stay anonymous, Premier League clubs recently received a letter from the CEO of the NPL, Mathew Haikali, informing them that they would not receive their monthly grant for April.

“Due to budgetary constraints that the league has encountered, we wont be able to release our money for April,” the letter stated.

The Coca Cola Frank Fredericks Invitational Athletics Meeting will take place for the 14th consecutive year on Friday, April 9. Coca Cola on Tuesday announced a sponsorship of N$140 000 for the event, which will see the top eight junior athletes in the country competing against each other in selected field and track events.

At Tuesday’s launch, the event organiser Quinton Steele Botes said that it had grown in stature from humble beginnings in 1997, when Coca Cola sponsored it to an amount of N$40 000.

Old Mutual Namibia on Monday sent off the overall winners of the 2009 Old Mutual Victory Races to participate in the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town which takes place on Saturday, April 2.

Johannes Naitembu, who was the overall male winner and Helena Ipinge, the overall female winner, each received athletic equipment, flight tickets and pocket money from Revonia Kahivere, the Corporate Transformation Consultant for Old Mutual Namibia.

FNB Namibia on Tuesday announced that Zakumi, the official mascot of the FIFA World Cup TM is coming to Namibia and will be conducting a nationwide tour, courtesy of FNB Namibia and Visa.

At Tuesday’s launch, Dixon Norval of FNB said that they had decided to make sure that Namibia also shares in the excitement of the FIFA World Cup and had arranged the Zakumi visit for the benefit of all Namibians.

Some top class athletics performances were on show in Windhoek over the weekend when the cream of Namibia’s junior athletes competed at the Coca Cola National Athletics School Championships at Windhoek’s Independence Stadium.

A total of 740 athletes from 13 regions competed at the championships which saw a total of ten new records established.

According to Solly Duiker of the Namibia School Sport Union, the performances were an improvement on last year, which was mainly due to new, stricter qualifying standards.

Mark Brinkmann won the MTN Off Road Triathlon at the Friedenau Dam on Sunday in a new record time of 2:10:28, which was four minutes faster than the winning time in 2009.

Approximately 150 athletes participated in the event, which consisted of a 1.2km swim, 24.7 km bike ride and a difficult off-road run of 8.9km, for which a path was specifically cut out of the surrounding bush.

Ramblers coach Ali Akan has called for the resignation of Brave Warriors coach Tom Saintfiet, saying that it would be the honourable thing to do following Namibia’s elimination by Seychelles from the African Championships (CHAN Cup) competition.

Namibia drew 1-1 against the Seychelles in Windhoek on Saturday, but were knocked out 2-1 on aggregate after losing the first leg 1-0 in the Seychelles on March 13.

North West comfortably beat Namibia by eight wickets in their one-day CSA Challenge match in Potchefstroom on Sunday. Namibia won the toss and elected to bat and scored a competitive 215 for 6 wickets off their 40 overs.

North West however made short shrift of this as Christiaan Jonker scored a century and former Proteas all rounder Andrew Hall 58 to steer them to victory with 10 overs to spare.

Namibia got off to a solid start as all their top order batsmen got amongst the runs.

Namibia crashed to a 76-run defeat in their three-day CSA Challenge match against North West in Potchefstroom on Saturday. It was a disappointing end to a match that Namibia should have won, but they failed to press home their advantage as the home side recovered for a come-from-behind victory.

Namibia had North West in deep trouble early in their first innings when Louis Klazinga took three wickets in seven balls as North West crashed to 20/4 and then 31/5.

The Pumas overcame a gallant performance from Namibia’s Welwitchias to triumph 30-10 (halftime 17-7) in their Vodacom Cup North section match at the Nelspruit Rugby Club in Nelspruit on Saturday.

The match never reached any great heights as both sides were guilty of numerous handling errors although they were hampered by conditions that saw the first half played in stifling humidity while heavy rain in the second stanza made control of the ball difficult.

In the end the home side ran in five tries to preserve their unbeaten home record this season.