Africa-Press – Namibia. Namibia Hockey Union (NHU) president Carin Slabbert is confident that both the men and women’s junior national hockey teams have the potential to put up a sterling performance during the December world cup.
The country will have the men’s junior hockey team competing in the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Men’s Junior World Cup in Madurai, India, from 28 November to 10 December, while their female counterparts will compete in the Women’s Junior World Cup in Santiago, Chile, also in December.
The NHU president says both junior national teams never ceased preparations since Namibia hosted the Africa Junior Cup earlier this year, and that preparations started in 2024.
“Getting a silver medal at the Junior Africa Cup automatically qualified Namibia for the junior world cups. To be honest, the teams never stopped with training. After the Junior Africa Cup, they continued with the training, and due to some players not meeting the age requirement, they had to make sure replacements were done,” she says.
Slabbert says the junior teams trained with the senior men’s team that qualified for the Africa Nations Cup, which unfortunately, due to lack of funding, Namibia could not take part in.
The Namibian government recently injected N$4.5 million for both the junior national teams’ participation in India and Chile.
“I am confident of a good showing. It’s absolutely new territory for us, and it’s the first time ever that we even got a medal at the Africa Junior Cup,” Slabbert says.
The NHU president says the men’s junior side will engage Spain and Belgium.
“I think if we improve on the world ranking then we have already achieved a lot,” says Slabbert.
She says FIH has increased the number of participating teams from 16 to 24.
The junior women’s team finds itself in a tough group with India, Germany and Ireland. It will be Namibia’s first-ever appearance in Chile, with the boys also making their maiden appearance at that level.
Slabbert says the NHU did a lot of fundraising to make provisions for future tournaments.
NKOSI CUP
Both indoor men’s and women’s teams will take part in the Nkosi Cup slated for Cape Town in December.
“We decided to take the junior players to be exposed in light of the participation in the next Indoor World Cup, and not take players who will be unavailable by then,” says Slabbert.
She says the national junior teams could not leave earlier for acclimatisation purposes due to flight issues. However, the men’s team will have two warm-up matches to get used to the humid conditions in India.
For More News And Analysis About Namibia Follow Africa-Press
