Namibia’s Youth Olympic campaign so far

Namibia has recorded two swimming final appearances and a fifth-place finish in beach wrestling at the Dakar Youth Olympic Games in Senegal.

Cyclists Bianca Nell and Mike Baartman were still in competition at the time of going to print yesterday.

Swimmers Lorenzo Esterhuizen and Roselinda Matyayi emerged as the country’s only two finalists in the pool, with Esterhuizen recording Namibia’s highest placing after finishing seventh in the men’s 200m butterfly on Friday.

The 17-year-old clocked 2:10.17 in the final, improving on his qualifying time of 2:10.82 by 0.65 seconds to conclude Namibia’s swimming campaign.

Matyayi leads African field

His performance followed Matyayi's eighth-place finish in the women’s 200m backstroke final on 1 November, where the 16-year-old was the only African swimmer to reach the medal race.

Meanwhile, Madison Bergh also recorded an eighth-place overall finish in the women’s 400m freestyle in 4:37.03, although the event was decided on times across heats without a separate final.

Nathan Bock came closest to giving Namibia a third swimming finalist, finishing tenth overall in the men’s 50m breaststroke in 30.04 seconds on Thursday.

His performance placed him two positions and 0.61 seconds outside automatic qualification for the eight-man final, making him second reserve.

Shipopyeni takes fifth

Elsewhere, Namibia’s Lisias Shipopyeni finished fifth out of 12 wrestlers in the men’s 60kg beach wrestling competition at Saly Beach West on Saturday, narrowly missing out on the semi-finals.

The 16-year-old recovered from an opening defeat to Venezuela’s Wilfredo Gonzalez to beat Côte d'Ivoire's Namon Coulibaly before receiving a victory by forfeit against Greece’s Ioannis Kesidis.

Shipopyeni finished second in his four-man group but missed out on progression, as only the three group winners and the highest-ranked runner-up advanced to the semi-finals.

Langford withdrawn

Namibia’s Johannes Langford, meanwhile, ended his Youth Olympic campaign without a finishing position after being withdrawn from Thursday’s men’s individual triathlon.

The Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) confirmed that the 16-year-old, who won the men’s elite race at the World Triathlon Development Regional Cup in Mozambique last year, experienced symptoms of overheating.

Cyclists in action

Meanwhile, Namibia’s Bianca Nell and Mike Baartman were contesting the women’s 59.5km and men’s 76.5km road races, respectively, at Corniche West in Dakar yesterday. Their results were unavailable at the time of going to print.

Athletics and boxing also feature in Namibia’s remaining programme at the Games.

– [email protected]