SKW’s prolific midfielder Marco van Wyk capped a great season by winning the Namibia Sport MTC Player of the Season award.
Van Wyk played a major role in SKW’s challenge for the title and although they faltered over the last few matches to finish fourth, Van Wyk was in a class of his own. Despite being a midfielder, he emerged as the second highest goalscorer in the league behind Jerome Louis of Black Africa, while it was often his creative spark that set up SKW’s victories.
Our panel of judges consisted of the 12 Premier League coaches, with four voting for Van Wyk, three for Louis, two each for Ninja Karongee of African Stars and Rudolph Bester of Eleven Arrows and one for Eslin Kamuhanga of Civics.
It’s interesting to note that Louis emerged as the NPL Player of the Season after the same panel of judges purportedly voted for him. The difference in votes could be ascribed to the fact that we did not place any restrictions on coaches, with the result that they could vote for their own player, but one of the coaches told me that he was not approached to cast his vote in the NFA Player of the Season award.
Be that as it may, I think that Van Wyk is a worthy winner, although the competition was very tough and any one of the finalists would have deserved the trophy. Congratulations Marco!
Paulus Moses gave a world-class performance when he beat Takehiro Shimada of Japan on points on July 25 to retain his WBA lightweight title. Although Shimada was a tough customer, Moses was in a different class and raked in the points with his razor sharp jab and his speedy combinations. It wasn’t his best performance (as his international agent, Phillipe Fondu was quick to note) as he was often made to miss by the crafty Japanese fighter, but he clearly has the talent to go far and a Super Fight against the WBO champion Juan Manuel Marquez of Mexico or the WBC champion Edwin Valero could soon be in the offing.
Namibian boxing promoter Nestor Tobias also deserves credit for hosting the first ever world title fight in Namibia, which was well organised and drew a crowd of about 3 000 fans. On the undercard, Namibia’s Tyson Uushona and Jatoorora Tjingavete retained their Pan African titles, while other exciting local boxers like Sacky Shikukutu, Abmerk Shidjuu and Paulus Ambunda all improved their records with victories.
It shows that Namibia has the capacity to host international events, but next time a bigger venue like the Sam Nujoma Stadium or the Independence Stadium should be considered.
Namibia also drew praise for hosting the AMU African Motocross Championships, while our national rugby team edged closer to the 2011 World Cup with an emphatic victory against the Ivory Coast.
In neighbouring South Africa, mountain bike riders Marc Bassingthwaighte and Heletje van Staden kept Namibia’s flag flying high as they won the Elite Men and Under 23 Women’s titles at the African MB Championships. Another athlete who excelled was gymnast Robert Honiball who won seven gold medals at the South African Student Games after a long layoff through injury.
Codes in turmoil
After years of turmoil under the controversial leadership of Alpha Kangueehi, Athletics Namibia has entered a new dawn under the presidency of Frank Fredericks. Although Kangueehi left AN in financial dire straits, Fredericks has already inaugurated a new office for AN and in this issue sets out his vision to bring the sport code back on track.
Another code that has been hampered by poor administration and a lack of international competition, netball, has come under the spotlight after the Minister of Sport and a representative from the international motherbody tried to intervene and effect change. A consultative meeting between all the role players, including the executive committee of the All Namibia Netball Association, was organised by the Namibia Sport Commission, but ANNA’s president Carol Garoes managed to survive the challenge to her leadership on a technicality.
Namibian netball reached a nadir at the SADC Youth Games in December last year when the NSC had to bail out Namibia’s youth team after it emerged that Namibia had not paid its membership fees to the Confederation of Southern African Netball Associations for more than two years. Besides that, international competition has dried up over the past few years, while development in the regions is at a standstill.
An organising committee was elected at the consultative meeting which will now work in cooperation with ANNA’s excom and hopefully this once proud sport can be resurrected soon.
There is much more to read in the August edition of Namibia Sport magazine, ranging from the successful FNB WHS School Sport Festival, the Cell One NFA Cup final and the MTC Rugby Premier League to our regular Bank Windhoek Sport Science column, the Local Shorts and the Nashua Sport Calendar.
Helge Schutz