No team for Youth Games yet

No team for Youth Games yetSix months to prepare for Commonwealth showpiece With only six months left before the Commonwealth Youth Games, the NNOC has not yet announced the Namibian team for the competition. The Namibian National Olympic Committee (NNOC) has only six months left before the Commonwealth Youth Games but no team has been selected yet.

Speaking to Namibian Sun on Tuesday, NNOC president Abner Xoagub said despite communications made to federations last year about the upcoming games, they still have no list.

“We communicated this to the federations last year already that these games are coming up, and that includes the school sport union, but we still don't have a team,” he said.

He said the federations might have to look to the athletes who took part in the Zone Five games in Angola early this month.

“We need to prepare but if we start in January we will have six months so how do you prepare athletes in six months?

“Because six months is not going to help anything if these children go to these games and do not perform well we will blame them again but we are late,” he said.

Xoagub said the qualification criteria had been set and would be shared with the federations.

“We will share the criteria with the federations in January so that the athletes can start qualifying as it is no more like in the past were everybody could go as there are now criteria, because we were supposed to submit the names of the children in January but I don't know how we will deal with it,” he said.

He said they need to have representatives in athletics, swimming, rugby sevens, cycling, boxing, tennis, soccer and beach volleyball.

There is also need to start putting together a team for the Commonwealth Games in Queensland, Australia, from 4 to 15 April 2018.

“We also need a team for the Commonwealth Games because we also do not have much time for them as you have 15 months to prepare them but if you did not even identify them then you have limited time to prepare,” he said.

The other major events in the Olympics calendar are the Youth Olympic Games in Argentina in October 2018 and the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, from 24 July to 9 August 2020.

KAINO NGHITONGO