Call for an urgent sport indaba

Former Athletics Namibia (AN) president Alpha Kangueehi says there is an urgent need for a national sport indaba to spearhead positive sport development.

Following Namibia’s poor run at this year’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games, many of the country’s sport stakeholders are questioning what went wrong in leading to the decline of the number of athletes at one of the world’s biggest sport spectacles.

Speaking to Desert Radio recently, Kangueehi said Namibia’s poor representation at the Olympic Games in Paris, France, warrants an urgent national sport convention to pave a meaningful route to the resuscitation of Namibian sport.

“We must come up with a clear blueprint that will have an aggressive purpose in identifying talent in towns and rural areas, in our quest to produce future Frank Fredericks, Luketz Swartbooi, Agnes Samaria and Gaby Ahrens’.”

Kangueehi said it is important for both the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service and the Namibia Sports Commission to spearhead the needed indaba.

At the recent Olympic Games, Namibia fielded just four athletes who didn’t bring home a single medal, compared to 10 athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

“Athletes want competitions. They really want to compete,” he said.

Kangueehi emphasised that poor preparation for qualifying events undermines an athlete’s desire to be competitive internationally.

“Our short-sightedness stems from the lack of proper competition, finance and poor developmental programmes,” he added.

The former athletic boss said the situation is made worse by a lack of talent identification countrywide and the necessary data to propel sport development.

“AN’s development programmes must be visible in all regions and should have a consistent training camp. What we have in Namibia is kind of a hobby, as we do not have a plausible solid track and field developmental programme because the athletics season is a mere four months long,” he said.

This is in contrast to countries worldwide that have programmes running throughout the year, he added.

Kangueehi described Namibia’s preparation for Paris as laughable, embarrassing and disappointing due to poor development programmes.

He said it is time to eliminate the mentality of treating athletics as a hobby to rather focus on the bigger picture because countries worldwide are focusing their attention on the 2028 Olympic Games, to be hosted in Los Angeles in the United States.

He highlighted that the government will never fund individual sport clubs but would be willing to assist national sport bodies if provided with individual development programmes.

“If we continue doing this, Namibia will never ever qualify for another Olympic Games in the absence of a sport blueprint.”

Like many former and current sport administrators, Kangueehi believes legislation should be enacted to compel the mining and fishing sector to establish a national sport fund to assist struggling sport associations and federations financially.

He said in the past, Namibian athletes benefited greatly from the bilateral programme with Cuba and football reaped fruit from an agreement with Germany.

He further said it is time for individual sport codes to establish how to benefit from the programmes the sport ministry has with other countries.