NAMIBIA’s preparations for the 2018 Indoor Hockey World Cup picked up a gear over the weekend when the national women’s team held a training camp in Windhoek last weekend.
According to national coach Erwin Handura the main aim of the camp was to reduce the squad from 23 to 17 players, while the final squad of 12 players will be announced in October.
“The Namibia senior women indoor hockey national team hosted its first training camp over the weekend, since being crowned African champions on 25 June in Swakopmund. A strong squad of 23 players was announced a couple of months ago and subsequently started with training in August,” he said.
“The training camp took place from 15 to 17 September at the WAP Indoor Hall at the Wanderers Sports Ground and the main purpose of the camp was to reduce the team from 23 players to 17. The final 12 players going to the World Cup will be announced in October,” he added.
The players to lose out were Tara Myburgh, Carien van Rooyen and Ashley Barnard from Saints, Lidia Simon from Unam, Fenesta Pienaar from NUST and Zalia Duvenhage from Windhoek Old Boys.
According to Handura, the squad will attend another training camp in Swakopmund at the end of November, while the team will also compete in two tournaments in South Africa. The first one will be in Cape Town in December, during the annual PSI series, while they are still waiting for South Africa to confirm the dates for the annual away test series in Durban.
Namibia will compete at the fifth edition of the Indoor Hockey World Cup scheduled for 7-11 February, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
It will be the second time that Namibia will compete at the Indoor World Cup, after competing at the third edition of this high profile world event in 2011 in Poznan, Poland. At the 2011 Indoor World Cup, Namibia managed to win one game out of six and finished 10th out of the 12 competing nations.
Handura said their aim was to improve on that at next year’s event, while they will receive some top quality assistance in the run up to the World Cup.
“Our aim next year in Berlin is to win at least three matches. Going into the World Cup, we will be ranked in the top 12 teams in the world and we want to keep improving our world ranking,” he said.
Handura added that the two top teams in the world, the Netherlands and Germany have agreed to assist Namibia with their preparations.
“The head coach of the Dutch indoor women’s national team, Marieke Dijkstra, a former teammate of Namibian captain, Magreth Mengo at Kampong Hockey Club in the Netherlands, will be in Namibia in November to help us with our preparations,” he said.
“Namibia will have a training camp in Germany from 26 January to 4 February, 2018 in Köln, while the German Hockey Federation has seconded Rudiger Hänel, a former coach of the German national team and a master coach of the International Hockey Federation as a technical coach before and during the World Cup,” he added.
The Namibian squad of 17 players is as follows:
Maggie Mengo (captain), Petro Stoffberg, Berencia Diamond, Sune Crous, Jerrica Bartlett, Marcia Venter, Jocelle Deysel, Gillian Hermanus, Sunelle Ludwig, Dure Boshoff, Ina Louis, Phia Gerber, Jivanka Kruger, Jeani Holz, Zani van Lill, Kiana Cormack, Kaela Schimming.
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