World’s top athletes coming to Windhoek 

Some of the world’s top international athletes will be in action at a street event in Windhoek on 27 and 28 March.

Star attractions like Joe Kovacs and Tom Walsh in the shot put, and pole vaulters Sam Kendricks and Sandi Morris have already confirmed their participation, while the biggest star and current world athlete of the year, Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis will almost certainly also be in action. 

Namibian athletics coach Henk Botha, who is now also a World Athletics event organiser, yesterday confirmed the news.

“I had a big dream of hosting world-class competitions in Namibia, but unfortunately we have a big challenge with the fact that we dont have a track that international athletes would like to run on, or that is accredited with World Athletics. But throughout my tours in Europe I saw more and more events being held in streets where they construct temporary tracks and it’s very popular with the public, so I can now announce that we will have a street event in Windhoek on 27 and 28 March. It’s already on the World Athletics calendar, and I’m very excited because we are going to see world class athletes here in Namibia,” he said. 

“Joe Kovacs will be coming and he already said he wants to break the shotput world record here in Namibia, and we also have Sandy Morris in the pole vault – she will be a great drawcard to see how high she can go, to see a woman going close to five metres in the pole vault is something extraordinary, so hopefully she can give us a great show. Then we have another pole vaulter, Sam Kendricks of the United States, who has already passed six metres,” he added.

The biggest drawcard, however, is the Swedish superstar, Duplantis, and Botha said its nearly 100 percent certain that he will also be in action. 

“He is not confirmed yet, but we are very far into the negotiations. I just spoke to his agent and they have effectively said yes. They said give us another two days – it’s just about planning, and they just want to see if it works in their training structure with their coaches. ”

Duplantis is the biggest drawcard in world athletics at the moment. He is the current world athlete of the year after a fantastic unbeaten season during which he set a new world record of 6,30m at the Tokyo World Championships. It was the 14th time that he had broken the world record during a stellar career in which he has won two Olympic gold medals, three outdoor world championship gold medals, and three indoor world championship gold medals. 

“If it’s confirmed I’ll let the world know and maybe we can also see a world record in the pole vault here in Namibia,” Botha said.

“We don’t have an accredited track so we have to construct something that needs to be approved by World Athletics and that is exactly what we are going to do. We are going to have people running in the street, jumping in the street and throwing in the street,” he added.

The event will be held in Robert Mugabe Avenue in front of Windhoek High School with the sprinting, pole vault and high jump events to take place in the street, while the shotput and long jump events will be held at WHS’ Vegkop Stadium. 

Botha said it will be the first time that an international athletics street event is held in southern Africa, while it has been confirmed as a World Continental Tour Bronze event, which has a minimum prize money purse of US$25 000, or about N$400 000. 

Botha was tighlipped about the total costs involved, but said the Namibian corporate world had responded positively. 

“We have a good team around us and we spoke to a lot of people, especially the corporate world, to support us. A lot of companies responded positively – they said it’s a beautiful idea and they want to be part of it, so we are very blessed and hopefully we can make it an annual event,” he said. 

“But I don’t want to name the sponsors yet, we will have a separate press conference for that,” he added. 

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