The opening day of the U15 World School Sport Games underway in Belgrade, Serbia saw Namibia claim four gold medals and one silver.

Namibia started off with a bang yesterday, with Leané Boshoff winning her country’s first gold in discus. Ruano de Carvalho sprinted to gold in the 100m dash, while Stephanus Burger won gold in shot put.

De Carvalho together with Magano Naseb, Zack von Wielligh, Jano Erasmus then won gold in the 4x100m relay race.

The girls 4x100m team of Evandre Farmer, Epifania Johannes, Liina Nanhele, Anine le Roux claimed silver.

In the 400m race for girls, Nanhele ended fifth overall.  Throwing coach Hennie Boshoff told New Era from Belgrade that he is happy with the performances thus far.

“I am proud of the children and I think we have a good chance of winning more gold when Waldre Kotze and Jano Erasmus compete in discus and javelin, respectively tomorrow (today).” 

Sprinters’ coach Liebhardt Mogotsi was also pleased with his runners and anticipate that they will again do well today.

“We did not pressure them at all to do well; they are still juniors. We gave them the basic techniques but overall, the spirit is good in the camp. They all have potential to do great. I hope Namibia rally behind them.”

Today, the boys and girls will compete in medley relays.

Each team will run a combined 1 000m, with the first runner covering 100m, second runner 200m, third runner 300m and the last runner 400m.

The same 4x100 teams that ran yesterday will run in the medley relays.

The rest of today’s schedule:

Evandre Farmer - 300m hurdles - final 

Waldre Kotze - discus - final 

Zack Von Wielligh - 300m hurdles - final 

Jano Erasmus - 300m hurdles - final and javelin - final 

Epifania Johannes - 200m - final

Magano Naseb - 200m - final and long jump - final 

Ruano de Carvalho - long jump - final