Africa-Press – Namibia. THE Marathon Sugar Quinton Steele Botes Athletics Training Camp reached an impressive milestone when it was hosted for the 30th successive year at the Wanderers club this week.
Since Botes launched the clinic in 1993 it has continued each year, through thick and thin, under the dynamic leadership of the former athletics coach and administrator.
When Botes passed away in 2014, Leonie van Rensburg took over the organisation of the event, despite initial doubts.
“When Quinton passed away I was not sure whether we should continue with the camp so I approached the sponsors, but all of them said yes, they wanted to continue,” she said.
“Some of the sponsors later dropped out and new ones came in, while others returned, but there were also difficult times. One year after covid, I didn’t have any sponsors, but we managed to continue, although it was a bit smaller, because of covid restrictions. But we just continued, we didn’t want to miss a single year, and I think that’s part of the reason why we are still growing,” she added.
Van Rensburg said this year’s camp was a great success, with more than 300 children, coaches and teachers being exposed to some top class coaches.
“The QSB camp was a tremendous success this year. The outcome was very good with more than 300 athletes and coaches attending the camp. The coaches were very impressed with the teachers’ willingness to learn and their desire to take the knowledge back to their regions, and that was always the aim, to train the trainers and then the kids,” she said.
The coaches included South African’s Charlie Strohmenger and JJ Smith, as well as the current South African high jump champion Yvonne Robson, and Namibian-born Roger Haitengi who is currently the athletics manager at the University of Johannesburg, as well as the Namibian triple jump record holder.
Top Dutch long distance coach Grete Koens also participated at the camp, along with several Dutch athletes who have been training in Namibia, while Namibian coaches included Lucky Gawanab, Ryan Williams, Jasper Coetzee, Izanne van Schalkwy, Karin Swanepoel and Tangeni Nakale, as well as aspiring coaches Nandi Vass and Johanna Ludgerus.
Ludgerus, the current Namibian 100m champion said she made use of the opportunity to assist and to acquire new coaching skills.
“I’m just here to observe and learn, because I’d like to be a coach in the future, so this is a platform for me just to get a glimpse of what goes into a coaching camp and how to deal with junior athletes. So far I’ve mostly dealt with senior athletes, but now I’m getting a better perspective of dealing with the juniors, in terms of development and drills and so on,” she said.
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