NAMIBIA failed to win any medals at the African Athletics Championships in Porto Novo, Benin, after Tjipekapora Herunga and Globine Mayova finished sixth and seventh respectively in the women’s 200m final on Sunday.
Herunga and Mayova reached the 200m final after setting respective times of 23,59 and 24,13 seconds in their semifinal heats, but could not improve on those times in the final. Gloria Asumnu of Nigeria won the final in 22,93, while Herunga came sixth in 23,92 and Mayova seventh in 24,30 seconds. Herunga was Namibia’s best hope for a medal in the women’s 400m race, but she was dramatically disqualified after a false start in her first round heat on Thursday put paid to her chances. None of Namibia’s other four athletes could make much of an impression at the championships. Namibia’s male sprinters Hitjiverue Kaanjuka and Frank Puriza both failed to reach the men’s 200m final. Kaanjuka reached the semifinals after setting the sixth fastest time of 21,11 in the 200m first-round heats. In the semifinals, however, he could only set the 12th fastest time of 21,08 with the result that he missed out on a top-eight final. Puriza’s time of 21,72 in the first round heats was the 25th fastest overall, which saw him just missing out on a place in the semifinals for the top 24 times. Daniel Nghipandulwa finished joint seventh in the men’s 1 500m final in a time of 3:50,13, which was quite close to his personal best time of 3:48,50. Roger Haitengi came sixth in the men’s triple jump final with a distance of 15,87m. His distance was well below his Namibian record of 16,74m and the Olympic qualifying distance of 16,85m.On Thursday, Mayova just missed out on a place in the women’s 100m final after posting the ninth fastest semifinal time of 11,91 seconds. Kaanjuka also missed out on the men’s 100m final after setting the 18th fastest semifinal heat time of 10,66 seconds. Frank Puriza also missed out on a place in the men’s 400m final after setting the 12th fastest time of 47.13 seconds in the semifinal heats on Thursday.
