LA Olympics project underway

The just-concluded National Youth Games marked the start of the country’s road towards having a strong presence at the 2028 Olympic Games, says Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) chief administrator Freddy Mwiya.

Speaking to Desert Radio this week, Mwiya said the theme for the 2024 National Youth Games was ‘Road to Los Angeles and Beyond’.

“What we are trying to do now is have a paradigm shift of not doing sport for the sake of it, but a shift through which we have identified the needed talent and are going to have a pool of athletes to work with,” he said of their plans.

“We are going to identify five to six sport codes we are going to work with for Los Angeles (LA) in the United States (US).

“We need to ensure the athletes’ database system is recorded and see how these young talents are upgraded and eventually promoted to senior national teams,” Mwiya said.

Athletics and boxing, which have historically dominated Namibia’s Olympic teams, are already earmarked for inclusion in the project.

“I have requested a podium performance programme for the next financial year, according to which N$8 million and above must be allocated every year for these specific programmes,” Mwiya said.

“It’s a gradual process and now that we have a plan in place and have selected a national team from the National Youth Games, training will start in December this year in preparation of the 2025 African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Youth Games to be hosted by Namibia.”

These young athletes will then be prepared to qualify for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Australia and the All Africa Games pencilled for Egypt in 2027.

“Eventually we will have these athletes vying for the team that will finally represent the country at the 2028 LA Games,” Mwiya said.

“You can already see there is a process in place, and we will do that with each and every sport code. For example, netball must gear towards the world netball championships and the world netball cup slated for Sydney, Australia, in 2027.”

Mwiya said due to limited resources, the National Youth Games will only take place in 2026, with Namibia already hosting the 2025 AUSC Youth Games.

He called on the regional councils to start investing in sport infrastructure, with multifaceted facilities that will be able to host several codes at once.

Swimming did not feature at this year’s games, because Oshakti and surrounding towns did not have facilities to cater for the competition.