No hopefuls for 2020 Olympic Games

Athletics Namibia (AN) president Erwin Naimhwaka said no Namibian athletes reached the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games qualifying standard, but he is happy with the work rate from athletes.The third leg of the Crystal Gold Regional Club Challenge Series was held at the coastal town of Swakopmund over the weekend.Naimhwaka said no track and field athlete qualified for the upcoming global games, scheduled for Tokyo, Japan, during the months of July and August.“We saw athletes giving it their all. Most pushed hard to improve on their times even though they did not reach the Olympic Games qualifying standards,” he said.He added that since AN changed the reward system in 2019, athletes' performances have improved and the competition is tough at every event. “In the past, we used to reward athletes for being in the top 10 but as of 2019, we decided to reward athletes differently. We have N$100 000 which is shared equally between the male and female categories, with the winner walking away with N$15 000. That is now pushing athletes to be ranked higher at the end of the series,” Haimhwaka said. The current qualifying standard by the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) for the 2020 Olympic Games requires athletes to achieve the entry standard within the respective qualification period and also qualify by virtue of their IAAF world ranking position in the selected event at the end of the qualification period.For an athlete to qualify to the Olympics through the entry standard, they should at least clock the following times in the sprint events:A time of 10.05 seconds for men in 100 metres, while women need to run 11.15 seconds. In the 200m, 20.24 for men and 22.80 for women, while in the 400m, 44.90 (men) and 51.35 (women). For the long-distance events, athletes have to clock 1:45.20 (men) and 1:59.50 (women) in the 800m. In 1 500m, men have to run 3:35.00 and women 4:04.20. No Namibian athlete came close to these times at Swakopmund. Beatrice Masilingi won all the sprint events, clocking 52.19 in the 400m, 24.09 in the 200m and 12.04 in the 100m. In the men's events, Jessy Urikhob clocked the fastest time in the 100m with 10.92, while Ernst Narib ran the fastest 200m in 21.20 and Ivan Danny Geldenhuys did the 400m in 47.27 seconds. Naimhwaka stated that despite the athletes' times being far from qualifying standard, they hope with the revamped incentives their performance will improve.NAMPA

No hopefuls for 2020 Olympic Games

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-04

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No hopefuls for 2020 Olympic Games

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-04

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