Mayova lowers Namibian 200m record in Pretoria

Globine Mayova won the 100m in 11.75 secs & lowered her 200m national record from 23.39 to 23.34 / Photo: Namibia Sport

Namibia - Sprinter Globine Mayova improved on her national 200m record, while winning both short sprint races, at the Athletics Gauteng North (AGN) Youth, Junior and Senior League meeting at the University of Pretoria sport stadium on Saturday.

Mayova won the 100m in a time of 11.75 seconds and lowered her own 200m national record from 23.39 to 23.34 seconds.

It was a great run, but it is still outside of the 23.30 needed to qualify for the IAAF World Championships later this year in Moscow.

In both races Mayova flew out of the blocks leaving the rest of the athletes to play catch up as the star from Grootfontein excited the crowd with her performances.

Expressing her satisfaction with her performances after the race, Mayova said: “I wasn’t sure what my times were as all of us are still tired because of the long bus trip from Windhoek and I just wanted to give my best, but now I am very happy and in the next two weeks I want to qualify and focus on preparing for Moscow.”

'No pushovers'

The Namibian disabled athletes competed against the able-bodied athletes and showed they were no pushovers as all of them either reached A or B qualifying standards for the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon, France.

Blind runner Ananias Shikongo showed his good form as he clocked an A qualifying time of 23.83 for the 200m.

Ananias, who was guided by John Nambala, however already qualified at the Olympics last year in London, but once again proved his form as he easily beat the A qualifying time of 24.55 seconds.

Elias Ndimulunde ran a 200m B qualifying standard as he clocked 23.63 seconds which was better than the required B standard time of 23.75. In the 100m he clocked 11.94.

Albertina Johannes clocked 14.98 seconds in the 100m, which was better than the B qualifying time of 15.60, while she set a time of 30.91 in the 200m where the qualifying time is 30.00.

Other races

Hitjivirue Kaanjuka won his 100m heat in 10.43 seconds and could only end second in the 200m with a time of 21.10, while fellow sprinter Jesse Urikhob came second and third in 10.76 and 21.30 seconds.

Tjipekapora Herunga ended second and third in the 100m and 200m in 12.03 and 23.90 seconds.

In the 400m newly crowned national champion Ernst Narib came third in 48.75 seconds.

Lilanne Klaasman ended third in the 100m hurdles in 15.15seconds while Claudia Moses came third in the 800m with a time of 2:14.96.

Team manager Agnes Samaria told Namibia Sport she was satisfied with the performances of the athletes.

“Today was always going to be tough because we traveled for more than 16 hours to get here but the athletes showed great character," she said.

"To get a national record and qualifying standards shows that we have exciting weeks ahead. We have a great group of athletes and I just wish we had more funds to bring more athletes. Then we will definitely get more Olympic medals, because here the athletes just concentrate on training, resting, focusing on their competitions and nothing else,” she added.

The Namibian group will next compete in the Central Gauteng Provincial Championships in Germiston on March 16, 2013.

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