Archive - Jan 2012 - Story

The future of rugby in Namibia was plunged into uncertainty with the announcement that the Namibia Rugby Union is insolvent and that its employees have been retrenched.

Furthermore, Namibia’s participation in the Vodacom Cup has come to an end while the appointment of a national coach has been postponed indefinitely.

These were just some of the grim realities painted by the NRU’s Interim Committee in a press release issued on Tuesday.

The CEO of Cricket Namibia, Graham McMillan has called for an improved performance by Namibia when they take on Kwazulu Natal in a Cricket South Africa (CSA) match at the Wanderers field, starting on Thursday.

Namibia are currently struggling in the three-day series and are second last on the 14-team log. They were rock bottom in the T20 competition, but are doing significantly better in the 50-over limited series where they are third on the log.

The Brave Gladiators’ coach, Jacqui Shipanga said the national women side’s loss to Tanzania could be blamed on the players’ lifestyles.

The Gladiators lost 5-2 in Tanzania on Saturday in the second leg of the 2012 African Women Championships qualifiers. They had lost the home leg of the qualifier 2-0 a fortnight ago.

“The team played well for most of the match but were completely outplayed in the last 10 minutes of the match, it's like we totally switched off,” Shipanga said.

Dan Craven won the second race of the Windhoek Pedal Power series, the Matchless Road Race over 106km in a time of 2:37:16 on Sunday.

Craven pulled away from Marc Bassingthwaighte with about a kilometre remaining to comfortably win the race by 17 seconds.

The 18-year-old cyclist Till Drobisch came third more than a minute behind in 2:38:44, while Ingram Cuff came fourth (2:42:02) and Damien Agnew fifth (2:43:53).

The race saw a lot of early breakaways on the Western Bypass before Bassingthwaigte made a big attack and opened up a sizeable lead past Van Eck Power Station.

Betuel “Tyson” Uushona will now fight Jan Zaveck of Slovenia for the WBO intercontinental title on March 24 in Slovenia.

Uushona had been scheduled to fight Ghanaian Joshua Okine for the IBF intercontinental welterweight title in Accra on February 25.

Uushona’s trainer, Nestor Tobias said the promoter from Ghana had not sent them a new contract after they postponed the Okine fight from January 20 to February 25.

“After they postponed the fight, we were not offered another contract while everything with the fight against Zaveck was ready,” Tobias said.

Christiaan Lamprecht and Christine Briedenhann of Namib Swimming Academy were crowned the senior Victor and Victrix Ludorum champions at the Namibia National Swimming Championships which came to an end on Sunday.

The 16-year-old Lamprecht won the award with a total of 3 129 FINA points for six events.

Macquelin Winkler came second with 2 976 points and Florian Hentzen of Dolphins third with 2 926 FINA points.

The Brave Gladiators lost 5-2 to Tanzania on Sunday for a 7-2 aggregate defeat in the first round of the 2012 African Women Championships qualifiers.

The Namibian soccer ladies team had it all to do in the second leg in Dar es Salaam after losing 2-0 in Windhoek a fortnight ago.

But in a game with an estimated attendance of about 15 000 people and under very hot conditions, the Gladiators gave a good account of themselves as they scored two goals through Emmerencia Fredericks and Juliana Skrywer.

The race for the top club at the National Swimming Championships heated up on Friday as Dolphins closed the gap on the Namib Swimming Academy.

At the end of the second session, NSA was still the overall leader with 20 gold medals and a total of 41 medals, but Dolphins were just behind with 17 gold medals and a total of 55 medals.

There were once again no records, but some good times were recorded, while swimmers from the visiting Mpumalanga team also put in some good performances.

Beata Naigambo shattered the Namibian marathon record on Friday when she came 14th at the Dubai Marathon in a time of 2:29:20.

Naigambo’s time was an improvement of more than a minute on the former record of 2:30:35 that Helalia Johannes had established when she won the Dublin Marathon in October last year.

Competing against some of the world’s top marathon runners, Naigambo kept up with the early pace setters before dropping off the pace over the second half of the race.

Paulus “The Hitman” Moses will now be fighting for the full WBO lightweight title and not the Interim WBO lightweight title after his opponent Ricky Burns was confirmed as the WBO's new lightweight world champion.

Burns became the full champion after the former WBO champion Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico moved up to the welterweight division.

Moses is scheduled to fight Burns on March 10 in Glasgow.

Moses’ trainer, Nestor Tobias said that the fact that the fight is now a world title fight did not change the way they had been working in the gym.