JULIUS Indongo and Helalia Johannes won the MTC Namibia Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year awards which took place at the Windhoek Country Club and Casino on Friday evening.
Indongo became the first Namibian boxer to win world titles of three different organisations when he beat Ricky Burns of the UK to add the WBA super lightweight title to his IBF and IBO titles in April.
In August however he suffered his first defeat when he lost the titles to Terence Crawford of the United States in a unification title fight.
Indongo, who received N$100 000 beat kick boxer Lesley !Hoaeb and triathlete Jean-Paul Burger to the award.
Indongo capped a lucrative evening when he also won the Sport Star of the Year award to pocket a further N$200 000.
Johannes came second in the Cape Town Marathon in September while she also came 19th in the Women’s Marathon at the World Athletics Championships in London in August.
She beat Michelle Vorster, the African mountain bike champion, and Magreth Mengo, captain of the Namibian hockey team, to the title and also received N$100 000.
Kick boxer Delano Muller won the Junior Sportsman of the Year award and gymnast Charlize van Zyl the Junior Sportswoman of the year award.
The Namibian u20 rugby team won the Team of the Year award after finishing fourth at the World Rugby u20 Trophy in Uruguay. They beat the senior rugby team that won the Africa Cup for the fourth year in a row and the women’s hockey team that qualified for the 2018 Indoor World Cup to the award.
Nestor Tobias of boxing won the Coach of the Year award, football referee Jackson Pavaza won the Referee of the Year award, and Netball Namibia won the Development Programme of the Year.
Johannes Nambala won the Sportsman of the Year with Disability award; Lahja Ishitile the Sportswoman of the Year with Disability award; Dian Jansen won the Junior Sportsman of the Year with Disability award; and Olivia Iyambo won the Junior Sportswoman of the Year with Disability award.
Women’s football administrator Jacqui Shipanga won the NSC Chairman’s Excellence Award, while Otniel Hembapu of New Era won the Sports Journalist of the Year award.
Sports Legends inducted
At the same occasion, MTC launched the MTC Sport Legends Initiative – an honorary awards incentive meant to pay homage to Namibia’s former sporting heroes.
The inductees included Namibia’s first Olympians at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona – athletes Frank Fredericks and Lucketz Swartbooi and swimmer Monica Dahl; and football players Eliphas Shivute, Ronnie Kanalelo, Congo Hindjou, Ricardo Mannetti, Collin Benjamin and Razundara Tjikuzu.
Boxing trainer and promoter Nestor Tobias was honoured as well as the three world champion boxers he produced, namely Paulus Moses, Paulus Ambunda and Julius Indongo, along with Namibia’s first boxing world champion Harry Simon.
Other inductees were professional golf player Trevor Dodds, rugby star Jacques Burger and Paralympics gold medallist Johanna Benson.
In her keynote address, Daisry Mathias, the Presidential advisor of Youth Matters and Enterprise Development said that sport had the ability to unite people, while it also presented the opportunity to contribute towards the nation’s agenda for development, social progression and economic transformation.
She said sport imparts profitable values and produces role models, who promote the values of discipline, commitment, consistency, team work and tenacity.
She highlighted President Hage Geingob’s war against poverty and corruption, saying that sport offered an avenue out of poverty.
“However, in order for them to realize their potential, we need to ensure that appropriate infrastructure, administration and support services are in place, so as to provide a conducive environment for athletic success,” she said.
“It is therefore paramount for the private sector to continue in partnership with the government, to ensure that we create access to the opportunities, for athletically gifted Namibians to excel at the highest levels,” she added.
Mathias said that diminishing levels of trust towards political as well as sporting leaders were discernible the world over and called on administrators to improve public levels of trust.
“President Geingob refers to the mathematical formula, that ‘accountability plus transparency results in improved levels of trust. This concept has become his leadership mantra and indeed, one of the central tenets of the Harambee Prosperity Plan’s desired goal and outcome, to achieve effective governance and improved service delivery,” she said.
