Namibia Sport will bring you profiles of the athletes who will represent Namibia at the Commonwealth Games, which are scheduled to start on Sunday 3 October in New Delhi.
Namibia has a team of 30 athletes from 8 different sport codes who will be taking part in the Games.
Here are the profiles of the Shooting team.
Gielie van Wyk
Gielie van Wyk only started shooting in 2006 but soon made his mark.
In 2009 he won his first national title and by the end of the year had established himself as Namibia’s top male shooter.
In November 2009, he beat some of the top shooters from Africa, including the African champion Paulo Silva from Angola, to win a gold medal at the African Grand Prix in Windhoek. Through this achievement he qualified for the Commonwealth Games in India.
In 2010 Van Wyk competed at the World Cup in Lonato, Italy, where he came 99th out of 150 shooters and at the World Championships in Munich, where he came 142nd out of 250 shooters.
Van Wyk said he was honoured to be selected to the Namibian Commonwealth Games team and hoped to reach the final in India.
“I am proud and happy to be given a chance to participate at the Commonwealth
Games and to be part of the Namibian team. My personal goal at the Commonwealth Games is to reach a score of 112 out of 125 which is the Olympic International Qualifying Score, which will hopefully get me into the Top Six final,” he said.
Gaby Ahrens
Gaby Ahrens started shooting in 2003 and soon made her mark as the top female shooter in Namibia. She first represented Namibia at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia but struggled under the media spotlight and failed to make an impact.
Since then she has regularly competed at international events abroad.
In 2007 she won a silver medal at the African Shooting Championships and in the same year also competed at the World Championships in Cyprus and the World Cup in Italy.
In 2008 she represented Namibia at the Olympic Games in Beijing where she came 20th, while she also competed at World Cup events in Beijing and Suhl.
In 2009 Ahrens won a bronze medal at the African Grand Prix in Namibia and in 2010 she competed at the World Cup in Lonato and the World Championships in Munich.
“I am proud to be part of the Namibian team. It was my goal to qualify for the Commonwealth Games so it is very satisfying to have reached this,” she said.
Ahrens said she hoped to reach the final at the Commonwealth Games.
“My aim is to shoot a 68 in Delhi and I hope this will be good enough to reach the final,” she said.