Archive - 2011 - Story

Brave Gladiators coach, Jacqueline Shipanga announced a team of 20 players, of which 19 will travel to Angola for the first leg of the London 2012 Olympic Qualifiers, which will be played in Luanda on 15 January.

Eleven of the players that were selected, represented Namibia at the Zone VI Youth Games that were recently held in Swaziland.

Shipanga said the reason why she took the risk of taking a young team was because they were fitter.

Namibia’s swimming team won six medals to finish fourth overall out of ten countries at the Zone Six Under 20 Youth Games which were held in Swaziland during December.

South Africa dominated the competition, winning with a total of 57 medals (30 gold, 22 silver and 5 bronze), followed by Zimbabwe (25 medals) and Mozambique (7 medals). Namibia won one silver and five bronze medals to finish fourth, while Swaziland, with one bronze medal finished fifth.

Ingo Waldschmidt has shown a marked improvement at the Dakar Rally and was lying 47th overall at the halfway stage of the event on Saturday. Waldschmidt came 45th overall on Saturday’s sixth stage between Iquique and Arica to move up to 47th overall out of the 125 motorbike riders who are still left in the race.

The world’s top enduro riders are competing in the 13-stage rally, which covers a terrain of more than 9 500km in Argentina and Chile and more than 5 000km of racing.

The Brave Gladiators’ preparations for their Olympic Games qualifier against Angola suffered several setbacks on Friday, with the withdrawal of a top player, injuries to key players, an upset result and a theft all contributing to a low morale in the camp.

Top goalkeeper Bonita Eixas withdrew from the team ahead of a practise match between the Brave Gladiators’ A and B sides at the Sam Nujoma Stadium on Friday. Although the reasons for her withdrawal were unclear, national coach Jacqui Shipanga said that she was mentally not strong enough.

The Marleybone Cricket Club (MCC) has selected a strong team which will arrive in Namibia at the end of January for a two-week tour.

The MCC is the world’s biggest cricket club, with more than 18 000 full members, while its teams are selected by invitation. The team to tour Namibia will be captained by Darren Maddy, who played three Tests for England and eight One Day Internationals between 1998 and 2000.

The 16-member squad includes the manager James Love, an umpire John Holder, and 14 players, most of whom have played at County level in England.

Namibia’s preparations for the 2011 Indoor Hockey World Cup continued to gather momentum, after competing against top South African invitational sides in Cape Town during December.

Namibia’s men’s team competed against invitational sides consisting mainly of Western Province and Natal provincial players as well as a few current and former national players, while Namibia’s women’s team competed against invitational men’s teams consisting of provincial players.

Despite losing their last match against South Western Districts in Oudsthoorn last month, Namibia are still in a strong position in the Cricket South Africa (CSA) One Day Challenge competition.

After completing five of their scheduled 13 matches, Namibia are lying third on the log after their 27-run defeat to South Western Districts.

Black Africa on Monday appointed a new technical staff consisting of Brian Isaacs as technical advisor, Otto Landsberg as head coach and Eric Quest as assistant coach. They replace Ricardo Mannetti and his assistant Golla van Staden who were fired on December 20.

Isaacs told Namibia Sport that he was offered the post of head coach but turned it down after recently being appointed as caretaker coach of the Brave Warriors. He however agreed to the post of technical advisor, to assist Landsberg and Quest in their job.

Jordan Haimbili of Blue Boys has jumped to the top of the goal scorers chart with six goals from 11 matches.

Despite being in a team struggling in the relegation zone, the striker has been in prolific form to go two goals clear of the chasing pack.

Haimbili scored in Blue Boys’ last two matches - in their 4-2 defeat to Black Africa on December 4 and in another 4-2 defeat against African Stars a week later.

Haimbili has shown a real striker’s instinct for goals and on current form it should not be long before he is snapped up by one of the bigger clubs in the Premier League.

The 2010/11 MTC Premiership is developing into one of the most exciting leagues in recent years with the title race still wide open at the halfway mark of the campaign. With 11 rounds of the 22-round campaign completed, a mere five points separated the top nine teams in the league, who all still stand a chance of winning the title and the N$1 million that goes with it.