Namibian Archers bring home silver from Western Cape!

WINDHOEK, MAY 8 – The archery teams from the National Archery in the Schools Program of Namibia fared very well in both the individual and team divisions at the recent NASP® Africa Tournament. The
tournament took place in Paarl, Western Cape, between teams from Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana from the 1st of May to the 4th of May 2019.

The tournament consisted of three separate competitions. The top 16 school archers from Namibia competed in the Africa Championship and a development team also consisting of 16 archers participated in the Development Challenge. A unique rule is that each team of 16 archers must include at least 4 girls.

This year the adult teams from NASP® competed for the first time. The adult teams consists of parents and instructors from the NASP® community and is called the Adult Archery Group (AAG). Teams participate in both bulls eye rounds and animal rounds. Bulls eye rounds are shot on an 80cm target and animal rounds is a hunting simulation on animal targets at various distances.

The tournament highlight is the final bulls eye knock out rounds between teams. The NASP® Namibia national team held its composure under very high pressure in the knock out rounds to come from behind and snatch the silver medal from Zimbabwe by qualifying for the final against South Africa.

Led by Delron Gaoseb in excellent form with two consecutive full 50s in the first two rounds, Namibia gave South Africa a run for their money or shall we say arrows.  Namibia went into this tournament well prepared with an intensive mental training session for teams held in Windhoek. Archery is not only a very technical sport, it is also a tough mental sport.

A big part of NASP® Namibia’s success and growth as a sport code is thorough preparation and mental training of teams. Exciting news is that this year NASP® Namibia will do an official audit of their participation in this tournament by a sport psychologist. The lessons learned will then be a platform from where a high performance group and training within schools archery is planned to be established.

The following are the Namibian team and individual results:

NASP® National team
Team results:
Bulls eye rounds silver medal
Animal rounds bronze medal

Individual results:
Delron Gaoseb (Commuity Hope School) animal rounds gold medal, overall boys bronze
medal

NASP® Development team
Team results:
Bulls eye rounds bronze medal
Animal rounds bronze medal

Individual results:
Le Roux Everson (Walvisbay Private School) bulls eye rounds silver medal
Hennie Nell (Elnatan) animal round bronze medal

NASP® AAG team
Team results:
Bulls eye rounds silver medal

Individual results:
Anja von Watzdorf, Woman’s gold
Francois Marais, Men’s silver
Delron Gaoseb, Denzel Nanub (both from Community Hope School) and Gerhard Koen
(Keetmanshoop Private School) where chosen for the NASP® Africa Federation team of 16
archers. – NDN Staffer