Windhoek Gymnasium to inaugurate historic rugby pitch

HISTORY will be made next weekend when the first artificial rugby field in Africa will be inaugurated at Windhoek Gymnasium Private School.

To commemorate the occasion, Windhoek Gymnasium will host an international junior Sevens Rugby tournament, the Capricorn Group Sevens Rugby Festival, which will see various u18 national teams as well as u19 and u15 school teams in action.

According to tournament director Wessel Kotze, the u18 national teams that

will be in action are Namibia, Zambia, Germany and Botswana, as well as a South African Academy and South African All Stars team.

The u19 schools competition will be contested by Windhoek Gymnasium, Windhoek High School (WHS), Walvis Bay Private School and Windhoek Technical High School (HTS), while the u15 participants are Windhoek Gymnasium, WHS, Windhoek Afrikaanse Privaat Skool (WAP) and HTS.

The first match will start at 14h36 on Friday, 3 March, with matches continuing through to 21h30. The official opening takes place at 19h00 on Friday.

The tournament continues at 08h14 on Saturday, 4 March, through till 14h46 when the u18 international cup final takes place.

The principal of Windhoek Gymnasium, Colette Riekert said the idea developed last year while they were supported by their owners Curro Holdings.

“We are very pleased with the astro hockey turf that we inaugurated in 2015. Then, when we inaugurated our floodlights at our rugby field, the field didn’t look very nice, it was quite pale and yellow. So we started discussing the possibility of building an artificial rugby turf with our owners Curro Holdings and they supported the idea,” she said.

“Their CEO, Chris van der Merwe said he was impressed by our school’s sport performances and he said that Windhoek Gymnasium was the first school that he was willing to make such an investment in,” she added.

It was a huge investment that cost N$12 million, but Riekert said it made financial sense.

“With the water restrictions, the municipality cut off our water supply to the field so we had to source our own water which cost N$100 000 per month. The maintenance costs are also so much less, so it definitely makes financial sense,” she said.

She said the rugby turf was three times thicker than their hockey turf and had special layers and rubber balls to absorb and compensate for the impact of rugby players.

The artificial turf was installed by a South African company, Artificial Grass Africa, who were putting the finishing touches to the turf on Wednesday.

Its owner, Pierre De Groote said that artificial turfs were gaining in popularity throughout Africa.

“We’ve already installed 33 football fields in African countries like South Africa, Zambia, Burundi, Tanzania and Benin. It’s the way to go – you can play up to eight times more matches than on a normal field and if its well looked after it can easily last for ten years,” he said.

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