Namibia aims to win Cossasa Ball Games: Duiker

WINDHOEK, 21 AUG – Namibia Schools Sports Union (NSSU) national coordinator, Solly Duiker says they have a good group of athletes ready to win this year’s Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa (Cossasa) Ball Games.

Namibia will host the games that will see countries like South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, eSwatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe compete in eight sport codes from Thursday until Sunday.
Speaking to Nampa today, Duiker said as host nation, their goal is to win all the gold medals at the event.

“We have good teams that can win us games. Our biggest challenge will be in netball where South Africa has a strong team that will give us a run for our money, but I am confident our netball team will give them fair competition in the Under-17 event,” he said.

Duiker added that they did not do well in some events like tennis last year, but now have a strong team that will do better at home.
“We are expecting to see teams arriving in the country as from today (Tuesday), which will be good motivation for our athletes who have been in camp for a week now,” he said.
Team Namibia finished third in the 2017 Cossasa Ball Games that were held in Lesotho.
Botswana won the games, while Zimbabwe finished as runner-up.

Namibia won four gold medals in Under-17 football; U-13 and U-17 rugby and U-13 netball.
Botswana, who won the ball games in 2016, successfully defended their title in 2017 with seven gold medals, while Zimbabwe won six gold medals.
Duiker said Botswana will this year not be defending their title as they withdrew from the competition due to financial constraints.

The codes athletes will compete in during the ball games are football, basketball, netball, hockey, volleyball, cricket, tennis and rugby.

Venues for the games are the Namibia Football Association Technical Centre, Independence Stadium, Windhoek Gymnasium, DHPS, DTS, Sport Klub Windhoek and the Israel Patrick Iyambo Police College. – NAMPA