NAMIBIAN shooter Gaby Ahrens is out of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games trap-shooting competition after she could not garner enough points to see her through to the next round of the competition.
Ahrens could only manage 52 points (Round 1 – 18, Round 2- 14, Round 3 – 20). Only the best six shooters in the qualification round go through to the final.However, Ahrens does not feel bad about her performance, saying she lacked a bit of concentration but learned a lot.She told Nampa afterwards that the target-shooting machine was a bit faster than when she practised the previous day, and she would now train to shoot on maximum speed.And having only started shooting five years ago, Ahrens views her first Olympic participation as the right move in the right direction.She will now invest in a sports psychologist, saying most shooters have such support because the game is highly mind-oriented.Her fellow African competitor, Diane Swanton from South Africa, also fell out with a score of 57 and placed 17th overall after the qualification round.Ahrens’s next competition will be in 2009 in the African and World Championships, billed for Egypt.Also yesterday, Namibia’s lightweight boxer Julius Indongo found the going tough at the Olympic Games as he was outpointed 14-2 by Australia’s Anthony Little .Indongo only managed to score a point in the second round and another in the fourth round in the bout that was only scheduled for four rounds.The Namibian joined his counterpart, welterweight Mejandjae Kasuto, on the sidelines.Kasuto was defeated by Russia’s Andrey Balanov on points (5-4).Indongo fired blanks in all the rounds, but the Australian ensured that he connected well as most of his blows hit Indongo on the face.Despite chasing after his opponent in especially the second and third round, Indongo failed to land the decisive punches that could have extended his tally.One of the Namibian coaches, Mistake Gariseb, told Nampa that his boxer did not follow instructions, saying things could have been better had Indongo just listened.But second coach Kennedy Muatara did not blame Indongo for losing, saying the problem started in the beginning when he (Muatara) was left out of the three-month training camp in Tunisia.According to Muatara, it was crucial for him to be at the training camp but he was overlooked by Namibian boxing officials, although he and Gariseb helped the boxers to qualify for the Olympics together.”The training that we started together was just abruptly stopped.How can the officials then expect [good] results? It is also impossible to think of medals with just three months’ training,” Muatara said.He urged the Namibian boxing administrators to show more respect towards coaches, saying the boxers-coaches combinations should not be interrupted, citing numerous other boxing teams at the Beijing Olympics that have been together for more than 10 years.The last of the Namibian boxers, Japhet Uutoni, will fight on Friday after receiving a bye to the next round.Light flyweight Uutoni will come up against the winner between Lukasz Maszcyk from Poland and Saidu Kargbo from Slovenia.Nampa and own reporterOnly the best six shooters in the qualification round go through to the final.However, Ahrens does not feel bad about her performance, saying she lacked a bit of concentration but learned a lot.She told Nampa afterwards that the target-shooting machine was a bit faster than when she practised the previous day, and she would now train to shoot on maximum speed.And having only started shooting five years ago, Ahrens views her first Olympic participation as the right move in the right direction.She will now invest in a sports psychologist, saying most shooters have such support because the game is highly mind-oriented.Her fellow African competitor, Diane Swanton from South Africa, also fell out with a score of 57 and placed 17th overall after the qualification round.Ahrens’s next competition will be in 2009 in the African and World Championships, billed for Egypt.Also yesterday, Namibia’s lightweight boxer Julius Indongo found the going tough at the Olympic Games as he was outpointed 14-2 by Australia’s Anthony Little .Indongo only managed to score a point in the second round and another in the fourth round in the bout that was only scheduled for four rounds.The Namibian joined his counterpart, welterweight Mejandjae Kasuto, on the sidelines.Kasuto was defeated by Russia’s Andrey Balanov on points (5-4).Indongo fired blanks in all the rounds, but the Australian ensured that he connected well as most of his blows hit Indongo on the face.Despite chasing after his opponent in especially the second and third round, Indongo failed to land the decisive punches that could have extended his tally.One of the Namibian coaches, Mistake Gariseb, told Nampa that his boxer did not follow instructions, saying things could have been better had Indongo just listened.But second coach Kennedy Muatara did not blame Indongo for losing, saying the problem started in the beginning when he (Muatara) was left out of the three-month training camp in Tunisia.According to Muatara, it was crucial for him to be at the training camp but he was overlooked by Namibian boxing officials, although he and Gariseb helped the boxers to qualify for the Olympics together.”The training that we started together was just abruptly stopped.How can the officials then expect [good] results? It is also impossible to think of medals with just three months’ training,” Muatara said.He urged the Namibian boxing administrators to show more respect towards coaches, saying the boxers-coaches combinations should not be interrupted, citing numerous other boxing teams at the Beijing Olympics that have been together for more than 10 years.The last of the Namibian boxers, Japhet Uutoni, will fight on Friday after receiving a bye to the next round.Light flyweight Uutoni will come up against the winner between Lukasz Maszcyk from Poland and Saidu Kargbo from Slovenia.Nampa and own reporter
