Team Namibia travels to PE for para champs

Agroup of 17 para-athletes will today leave for Port Elizabeth, South Africa for the 2021 edition of the South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) National Championships, which starts tomorrow and ends Monday.

Namibian athletes will use the competition as a qualifier for this year’s Paralympic Games slated for Tokyo, Japan in August and September. All 17 Namibian athletes will compete in track events.

Speaking to Nampa, Namibia Paralympics Committee (NPC) secretary general, Michael Hamukwaya said the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) will use this competition as the last qualifier for African athletes to qualify for the Paralympic Games.

“We currently have five slots allocated to us by the IPC, which is four slots for athletics and one for swimming, but we are fortunate enough to still get a chance of competing at the SASAPD championships in South Africa, so we can probably add one or two more slots for the Paralympic Games,” he said.

Hamukwaya added that the NPC is working on a four-year plan to develop young athletes for major competitions, and after the 2019 IPC World Athletic ChampionshipsinDubai, Team Namibia was just allocated one slot which was one of its poorest competitions since the 2012 Paralympic Games. “At the 2019 IPC World Athletic Championships we performed really badly but after that we did our best at the national Grand Prix and got ourselves three more slots in athletics. Our preparation would be better if we had enough funds to prepare and I am hopeful that our athletes’ performances and the national Grand Prix, especially the one that was hosted last week, will give us two more slots,” said Hamukwaya, adding that the athletes are ready to give their best while in South Africa.