Two national records at Independence Meet 

Namibia’s independence was celebrated in style by the country’s top athletes with some great performances at the Independence Celebrations Athletics Championships on Saturday.

Two new national records were established by Ansune Smith in the women’s hammer throw and Frieda Iithete in the triple jump, while several other performances came close to breaking more records.

Smith, who is only 17, continued her great performances of late when she broke her own national record of 46.75m by more than three metres, with a distance of 50.31m, while she also went past the 50m mark for the first time.

It was the second time in three weeks that she had broken the record and she said she was stunned.

“I’m speechless. We thought 50m would be unreachable, and this week was very bad for me, I didn’t get good throws in, I had a huge dip with my athletics and I was sad the whole time, so we said let me just compete to maybe boost my mood again. And then this happened, throwing a 50m for the first time – I never threw it in practice before, so it’s really something incredible,” she says.

“This is really a big step and I’m now about 20cm short of qualifying for the senior African Athletics Championships in Ghana so that’s the only thing we wish I could have put more energy in. But this is definitely a huge step, especially while looking for colleges next year, so hopefully this will open the door a bit,” she adds.

Iithete also excelled by breaking the national triple jump record, while she came very close to breaking Ronel Moolman’s long-standing long jump record.

She won the triple jump with a leap of 12.78m, which beat her previous record of 12.34m, while she is now also close to the qualifying mark of 13.00m for the African Championships.

She also won gold in the long jump with a leap of 6.03m, which is just 2cm outside Moolman’s record set 32 years ago. Iithete received 1 005 points for her long jump mark, while it is also close to the African Championships’ qualifying mark of 6.15m.

“I’m happy with my performance – this is my first triple jump for the season and I believe with more competition, I can improve my performance,” she said yesterday.

Lionel Coetzee produced the best performance of the meet in terms of World Athletics ranking points with a great jump of 8.12m in the men’s long jump, for which he received 1 164 points.

That was also within touching distance of his national record of 8.27m set three years ago, while it is well over the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 8.05m.

Nicolis du Plessis won two gold medals in the 110m and the 400m hurdles, while he is now closing in on another long-standing record in the former.

He won the 400m hurdles in 54.79 seconds (905 points), while his 110m hurdles winning time of 14.39 seconds (997 points) is now within striking distance of Flip Bredenhann’s national record of 14.12, that was established 46 years ago.

In the men’s middle distance events, David Dam obtained 997 points after winning the 800m in 1:51.03; Matthew Angula obtained 847 points for winning the 1 500m in 4:00.64; Samuel Jason obtained 651 points for winning the 3 000m in 9:17.63; and Kamaizemi Kavetu received 442 points for winning the 5 000m in 17:21.34.

Charley Matundu set the fastest time of 10.44 seconds in the 100m heats, for which he obtained 1 058 points, while Gift Maswahu ran 10.58 (1 013 points), and Vinacio Basson 10.61 (1 003 points).

Matundu had the fastest 200m time of 20.87 seconds (1 087 points), followed by Elton Hoeseb in 21.10 (1 053 points) and Silvano van Wyk in 21.18 (1 041 points), while Mahmad Bock had the fastest 400m time of 46.38 seconds (1 086 points), followed by Rudolph Kamambo (47.16 – 1 035 points), and Tjimatjitjitua Kuhanga (47.40 – 1 019 points).

Fikunawa Hanganeni set the fastest time in the women’s 100m heats of 12.31 seconds (930 points), while Perpetua Simataa had the fastest 200m time of 25.71 (878 points).

Tuuliki Angala excelled to win two gold medals, setting the fastest women’s 400m time of 54.54 seconds (1 030 points), as well as winning the 800m in 2:07.93 (1 025 points).

Selma Simon also won two gold medals, winning the women’s 1 500m in 5:51.65 (475 points) and the 5 000m in 18:02.59 (836 points).

Marike Weitz won two gold medals in the women’s field events, winning the discus with a throw of 44.00m (778 points) and the shot put with a distance of 13.98m (832 points).

Lauren van Niekerk won the women’s 100m hurdles in 14.91 seconds (906 points).

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