Johanna Benson won Namibia’s first medal at the Commonwealth Games when she came third in the Para-sport Long Jump in Glasgow on Sunday afternoon.
With her first jump, Benson set a new personal best of 3,82 metres and although she could not beat that mark in her next five attempts, it was good enough to win the bronze medal.
Jodi Elkington of Australia won the gold medal with a distance of 4,39m, while Bethy Woodward of England won silver with 4,00m.
Earlier on Sunday, Helalia Johannes came close to winning another medal for Namibia in the women’s marathon.
Johannes led the race with Kenya’s Flomena Daniel and Caroline Kilel for the first half of the 42km marathon, but on the second lap was not able to keep up with the two Kenyans and dropped out of the leading group.
With seven kilometres remaining, Johannes was however still 1:20 minutes ahead of Australia’s Jess Trengove and looked set to hold on for a podium finish.
With 3 km to go, Trengove however managed to catch up with the tiring Namibian and went on to win the bronze medal, while Lanni Merchant of Canada also passed Johannes to finish fourth.
A clearly disappointed Johannes crossed the line in 2:32:02 and had to settle for fifth place.
Johannes’ team mate Beata Naigambo finished 11th in 2:39:23 after stumbling over the finish line. With five meters to go Naigambo fell into the side barriers and dropped to her knees, just to pick herself up again to stumble across the finish line, where she dropped to the ground.
According to reports from the Namibian team in Glasgow, Naigambo apparently sprained a muscle and had great difficulty in breathing as she came down the finishing straight.
Ndeshimona Ekandjo and Reonard Namupala however failed to complete the women and men’s marathons respectively. were not able to finish the race.
In bowls, Namibia’s Men’s Pairs team of Douw Calitz and Will Esterhuizen still have a chance of winning a medal after they qualified for the bronze medal playoff which takes place today.
Yesterday, they caused a major upset after beating Australia 19-12 in the quarterfinals, before they lost 23-15 to Malaysia in the semifinals.
In their pool matches they beat Cook Islands 21-13 and Jersey 15-14 while they lost 25-15 to Australia.
Namibia’s Men’s Trips team of Steven Peake, Ewald Vermeulen and Piet Appolis finished third in their group and failed to reach the playoffs after beating Niue 21-9 and India 15-12, while losing 24-18 to Scotland and 24-7 to Wales.
In boxing, Junias Jonas, Mujandjae Kasuto and Lazarus Shaningwa all won their first round fights to reach the quarterfinals.
Jonas beat Amir Khan of Pakistan in the 64kg light welterweight category, Kasuto beat Joseph Mwaselange of Tanzania in the 75kg middleweight category, and Shaningwa beat Kaisa Ioane of Samoa in the 60kg lightweight category.
Immanuel Shaningwa lost his first round fight against Simon Nzioki of Kenya in the 52kg flyweight category.
On Thursday, Drikus Coetzee finished 25th in the men’s triathlon.
Stay informed with The Namibian – your source for credible journalism. Get in-depth reporting and opinions for
only N$85 a month. Invest in journalism, invest in democracy –
Subscribe Now!
