Coca Cola Top Ten Champs

Top-class athletics can be expected when the annual Coca-Cola Top Ten Athletics Club competition takes place for the tenth consecutive year at Windhoek’s Independence Stadium on Saturday.

Event organiser Quinton Steele Botes yesterday announced that Coca-Cola would sponsor this year’s event to an amount of N$50 000 and that any affiliated club throughout Namibia could still enter the competition. “Any club that is affiliated to its regional body can enter the competition.The deadline for registration is at 12h00 on Friday,” he said.The Top Ten competition will give each club an equal chance of winning the competition, irrespective of the number of athletes they enter.”We will take the ten best performances of each club on the day, which is measured in accordance with the International Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) scoring system.The top five male and top five female athletes of each club will be taken into account to determine which club will become this year’s club champions,” he said.Since the competition started in 1999, WHS Athletics Club has won it the most, but in recent years the power has shifted to Golden Cheetahs and Winners Athletics Clubs.WHS won the competition for the first six years in a row, from 1999 to 2004.Winners won the title in 2005, while Golden Cheetahs took it in 2006 and 2007.The battle for this year’s title will be extremely tough, with several clubs standing a chance of winning the trophy, according to Botes.”This year’s competition will be very tough between Cheetahs, Winners and WHS, while the NDF has improved a lot lately.It should be very close,” he said.STAR ATTRACTIONS Some of Namibia’s top long distance runners like Helaria Johannes, Beata Naigambo, Reinhold Iita and Frans Hosea will be in action in either the 1 500m or the 5 000m events.They are amongst more than 30 Namibian athletes who are preparing for the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town on March 20, and will use the Coca-Cola Top Ten Championships to improve their speed training.Johannes has won the Two Oceans 21km Marathon for the past two years in a row and in October last year qualified for the Olympic Games when she came fourth at the Dublin Marathon in a time of 2:35:30.On February 10, Naigambo also qualified for the Olympics when she won the South African Marathon Championships in Durban in a time of 2:38:43.Namibia’s top junior athletes will be in action and top class performances can be expected in the men’s 400m hurdles and javelin and women’s sprint events.Robert Wheal of WHS and Johannes van der Watt of Stampriet have both cleared 60 metres in the javelin, while Hardus Maritz of WHS and Kassie Katjimune of Jan Mohr Secondary School will battle it out in the 400m hurdles.The juniors Keshia Kalomo and Marilyn Diamond of Golden Cheetahs are expected to dominate the female sprinting events.The event starts at 15h00 on Saturday afternoon and will be concluded at 18h00.-www.namibiasport.com.na”Any club that is affiliated to its regional body can enter the competition.The deadline for registration is at 12h00 on Friday,” he said.The Top Ten competition will give each club an equal chance of winning the competition, irrespective of the number of athletes they enter.”We will take the ten best performances of each club on the day, which is measured in accordance with the International Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) scoring system.The top five male and top five female athletes of each club will be taken into account to determine which club will become this year’s club champions,” he said.Since the competition started in 1999, WHS Athletics Club has won it the most, but in recent years the power has shifted to Golden Cheetahs and Winners Athletics Clubs.WHS won the competition for the first six years in a row, from 1999 to 2004.Winners won the title in 2005, while Golden Cheetahs took it in 2006 and 2007.The battle for this year’s title will be extremely tough, with several clubs standing a chance of winning the trophy, according to Botes.”This year’s competition will be very tough between Cheetahs, Winners and WHS, while the NDF has improved a lot lately.It should be very close,” he said.STAR ATTRACTIONS Some of Namibia’s top long distance runners like Helaria Johannes, Beata Naigambo, Reinhold Iita and Frans Hosea will be in action in either the 1 500m or the 5 000m events.They are amongst more than 30 Namibian athletes who are preparing for the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town on March 20, and will use the Coca-Cola Top Ten Championships to improve their speed training.Johannes has won the Two Oceans 21km Marathon for the past two years in a row and in October last year qualified for the Olympic Games when she came fourth at the Dublin Marathon in a time of 2:35:30.On February 10, Naigambo also qualified for the Olympics when she won the South African Marathon Championships in Durban in a time of 2:38:43.Namibia’s top junior athletes will be in action and top class performances can be expected in the men’s 400m hurdles and javelin and women’s sprint events.Robert Wheal of WHS and Johannes van der Watt of Stampriet have both cleared 60 metres in the javelin, while Hardus Maritz of WHS and Kassie Katjimune of Jan Mohr Secondary School will battle it out in the 400m hurdles.The juniors Keshia Kalomo and Marilyn Diamond of Golden Cheetahs are expected to dominate the female sprinting events.The event starts at 15h00 on Saturday afternoon and will be concluded at 18h00.-www.namibiasport.com.na