Selection to Commonwealth Games is taking shape

Namibia’s team to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow is set to be announced in early June.

This was among the revelations as the Namibia National Olympic Committee president Dr Ndeulipula Haumtumwa and its CEO Anri Parker addressed a media conference yesterday.

Parker said: “Before you all ask the question, I'm delighted to say with the support help of our ministry and the minister, the ED, the director of sport and the Sports Commission, they have already given us a huge portion of funds towards the Commonwealth Games 2026 (in Glasgow, from 23 July until 02 August).

“I'm delighted to say Namibia will be taking a field of 22 athletes, able-bodied and para-athletes, with an entourage of coaching and support staff of 15.

“I think it’s going to be an unbelievable event in the five sports that we will be fielding. Among the para-athletes, Ananias Shikongo is already qualified with the slot and is always a wonderful athlete to take with in the group.

“A lot of our track and field athletes are currently at the Akane Simbini event in South Africa to hopefully get their slots going.

“Our bowling teams, both the men and women, have already qualified last year at the Africa Champs. The qualifying criteria was to be in the top two in Africa, which both the teams achieved.

“Our boxing federation had their national champs in Keetmanshoop and that remains as always one of our big medal hopes. They will be doing a training camp in South Africa with a world champion coach who will take the eight long-listed athletes for the Commonwealth under his wing for a couple of weeks.

“Gymnastics is also busy qualifying and will continue to do so until the end of May before the shortlist of athletes will be made available. I think that the kit has been designed and ordered already. Our athletes are going to look phenomenal.”

Parker added: “The long list of candidate athletes was handed in to us in January by the federations who are taking part. That list has now been whittled down to about 42 athletes. And once they've met qualification criteria, which is available on our website, that will be reduced to 22.”

IOC relations

Hamutumwa also touched on the NNOC and sports ministry’s recent visit to the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“As you know, sport is now prioritised at number two in Namibia’s National Development Plan 2025-2030. We, as an organisation, felt it fit to align our effort, our drive, our energy, and our resilience in ensuring that the government deliver on the mandate that they have taken forward with. In that regard, part of our strategy has been to increase our international footprint.

“Sport diplomacy has become a common language in our daily activities. On that basis, on 21 April we undertook a mission to Switzerland together with the Minister of Sport (Sanet Steenkamp) and her deputy (Dino Ballotti), together with the leadership of the Olympic Committee, led by myself, to visit the IOC headquarters.

“Importantly, we were able to meet our ambassador in Geneva to share our vision and to encourage our embassy to mobilise resources and opportunities, so that all of us collectively, we can help government to deliver on the mandate.

“We also had an opportunity to visit the IOC and meet Kirsty Coventry (IOC president). Primarily, our conversation centred around how can we mobilise greater support through the Olympic family to support Namibia to deliver on that. And that is to look at opportunities where we can advance, support avenues where athletes are able to prepare adequately, looking at partners that are able to build infrastructures for us, looking at possibilities where our athletes are sent around the world to best opportunities or best venues and high-performance centres.

“And all of these were part of the conversation that we had with the IOC president and also really, you know, mobilising additional support through the Olympic Solidarity Programme.

“The mission was very successful and a defining moment for Namibia's sporting future. The IOC is extremely supportive and thankful to Namibia's participation amongst these opportunities.

“Matter of fact, we have a visit that will be embarked by the IOC to come in and benchmark and really look at what are some of our best practises, what are some of the activities that we are doing here, looking at Namibia as a small country but yet has muscle to have global influence.

“Yesterday, we went to visit our president (Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah), firstly for us to award the president's trophy from ANOCA, given to African leaders that are making greater contribution to sport development. Namibia is the only country in Africa that has prioritised sport among its top priorities.

“Our government saw sport as the number two sector, for its potential to create employment, to reduce our health budget, to increase our educational capability, and that can improve the living condition of our young people.

“It's a sector that can create hope for our people, to unite, to inspire, and to create opportunity to a broader mass participation of youth.

“So all this is really us making a strong and bold statement that we can only transform the life of our athletes by not only looking out for ourselves, but to look at what are some of the greatest opportunities that the world has to offer, and for us to be able to put on our boots, and our jacket, and our overall, and service, and labour for the athletes until we sweat as much as possible. Because history has no record of anyone drowning in sweat.

“Having brought Anri Parker in to run our office, we have just demonstrated that sport is a business. From an office where we were initially three, currently by the end of this year we should be more than 12 professionals that are working to make sure we are building a system that will sustain excellence, not just for this Olympic cycle, but for generations to come.”