Namibia secured their first medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Tuesday night when boxer Philip Haoseb reached the semi-finals of the men’s 55kg category.
Haoseb convincingly beat Alex Mukuka of New Zealand 4-0 in the quarter-finals, and with both losing semi-finalists automatically receiving bronze medals, Haoseb has now secured at least a bronze medal.
Haoseb came out firing with some quick combinations to win the first round, while Mukuka had to take a standing eight count in the second round after Haoseb caught him with an overhand left.
Haoseb, however, had a point deducted and going into the final round the fight was still evenly poised.
Both boxers once again had points deducted but Haoseb landed more clean blows to finish as a clear 4-0 winner, with four of the judges scoring it 28-26 in his favour, while a fifth had it tied at 27-27.
Haoseb will now face Jadumani Mandengbam of India in the semi-finals tomorrow for a place in Saturday’s final.
After Tuesday’s fight, a beaming Haoseb exuded confidence.
“I said it before and I say it again. I’m a Namibian, we don’t get knocked out, we win,” he said.
“There were a lot of things going through my head, but I just focussed on my opponent. I was not expecting much from my opponent but he did his thing – it was a good fight, it was a tough fight, but I made it look hard actually, it was easy, but I made it look hard for myself,” he added.
Looking ahead, Haoseb said he is aiming for the gold medal.
“Namibia, one down another to go. As long as I have my coaches with me, we can handle anything. We all have God with us so we will take anything that comes our way. I’m not going piece by piece, I want straight gold.”
Two more Namibian boxers were in action last night and had a chance to secure more medals, with Tryagain Ndevelo taking on Niall Adams of Guernsey in a 60kg quarter-final bout, while Mischa Araes took on Nadeeka Ranasinghe of Sri Lanka in a women’s 51kg quarter-final.
Namibia’s swimmers, meanwhile, continued to shine in the pool yesterday as the men’s 4x100m medley relay team smashed the Namibian open record and qualified for last night’s final.
The team of Luke Beukes, Ronan Wantenaar, Jose Canjulo and Oliver Durand came fifth in their heat in a time of 3:44.61 which was more than 15 seconds faster than the previous record of 3:59.82 that was established last year.
Beukes, Canjulo and Durand also competed in the 200m freestyle heats yesterday, but none of them managed to qualify for the semi-finals.
Beukes won his heat in 1:54.51, Canjulo came third in his heat in 1:56.35 and Durand came seventh in his heat in 1:52.53.
In bowls, Diana Viljoen got off to a winning start in the women’s singles competition after beating Eunice Mbugua of Kenya 2-0 (8-1, 6-4).
Waylon Wentzel and Christo Steenkamp also got off to a winning start in the men’s pairs competition after beating Kaizer Geche and Charles Diteko of Botswana 2-0 (6-1, 4-3).
In athletics, Charley Matundu came third in his 200m heat in 21.00 seconds to miss out on a place in the semi-finals, while Ananias Shikongo and his guide, Even Tjiiuiju, were disqualified in their T12 100m heat.
No official explanation could be obtained but according to social media reports they were disqualified because they prematurely released the tether connecting them before crossing the finish line.
