World beaters
Medals galore… Namibia's Christine Mboma clinched gold in 21.84s and Beatrice Masilingi won silver with a new personal best time of 22.18s in the women's 200m final during the U20 World Athletics Championships at the Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi on Saturday. The world-class duo also helped Namibia win silver in the 4x100m relay on Sunday.
Team Namibia scooped four medals at the just-ended 2021 World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya, thereby recording Namibia’s biggest medal haul at an international sports competition for ablebodied athletes.
Christine Mboma won gold in the 200m, Beatrice Masilingi won two silvers in the 100m and 200m races, and Namibia’s last medal, a silver, was won in the women’s 4x100m relay on Sunday, courtesy of Ndawana Haitembu, Masilingi, Nandi Tjanjeua Vass and Mboma.
With their time of 43.76 seconds, the Namibians set a national U20 record.
In a tightly-contested 4x100m relay final, Namibia finished second behind winners Jamaica, who finished with a time of 42.94 seconds (new world U20 record), with Nigeria coming in third position in a time of 43.90 seconds (season’s best).
Haitembu started the relay for Namibia and was last to hand over on the bend to Masilingi, who managed to make up some ground on the second leg to hand over to Vass.
Despite a rather fumbled hand over between the two, Vass held out on the second bend to eventually pass the baton over to Mboma, who sped past several runners on the straight, clocking a blistering 9.86 seconds to end second overall.
In the 200m race a day earlier, Olympic silver medallist Mboma and Masilingi relegated Nigeria’s Favour Ofili to third place.
In the process, Mboma smashed Masilingi’s one-day old championship record, striking gold with 21.84 seconds (just 0.03 off her own world U20 record set in Tokyo).
Masilingi set a personal best of 22.18 seconds to take silver.
Mboma told World Athletics after the race: “Records come and go; you don’t own it. Yesterday, I set a championship record – and minutes later, Masilingi lowered it even further”.
Speaking to New Era soon after the relay on Sunday, Team Namibia coach Henk Botha said they are all very excited.
“We are very happy and very excited. We are proud to say we are from Namibia. We can’t stop talking about the results; it is unbelievable,” Botha said.