TEAM Namibia was forced to endure a 35-hour bus ride to the Confederation of School Sport Associations of Southern Africa Games, Potchefstroom, where they were due play several hours later.
The trip was plagued by problems starting at the beginning. The original departure time of 14h00 on Wednesday was postponed severally until the team of approximately 260 Namibian athletes, officials and officials left at around 23h00 at night.
This was only the beginning of their problems as they continued on the journey for over a day, arriving in Potchefstroom at 10:00 on Friday morning.
According to a concerned parent, they were held up for over five hours at the border due to insufficient paperwork. Once they got into South Africa, their accommodation plans continued to change.
The bus drivers were exhausted and stopped frequently to rest. They finally arrived in Potchefstroom on Friday at 10 a.m., 35 hours after they left.
Some of the codes were due to play matches Friday night, so it wasn’t clear if they would continue or alter the fixtures to accommodate exhausted Namibians.
“Our children have to go and represent our country, but how can they do that under these circumstances. It’s very unfair to expect national athletes to sit on a bus for 35 hours with minimal food and hardly any sleep and then go out and represent their country,” one parent said.
“I want Namibia to know whats going on and how poor the Namibia School Sport Union’s organisation is. This has been going for years, but everyone keeps quiet. The kids return and the tour is over. We see how many medals they won in the paper but no one knows about the problems behind the scenes,” the parent added.
Solly Duiker, the national coordinator for the NSSU, declined to comment when I tried to reach him.
“The team was accompanied by the chairman of the NSSU; he will be in a better position to answer, because I left Namibia yesterday, and arrived last night via Botswana,” he said via WhatsApp.
Theophilus Nuugulu, chairman of the NSSU, could not be reached for comment.
Source: namibian
