Local young athletes who were hoping to make their mark at this year’s MTC Namibia Youth Games will have to wait until April next year as the multi-sport youth games have been postponed until 2022, the Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) disclosed yesterday.

Speaking to New Era Sport yesterday, NSC chief administrator, Freddy Mwiya, confirmed that the annual competition will not be staged this year – saying the country has already selected the final squad that will represent Namibia at this year’s Region 5 Youth Games to be held in Maseru, Lesotho in December.

Mwiya further explained that staging the youth games this year while at the same time sending another team to go compete at regional level would be costly. He, however, added that despite the cancellation of the youth games for this year, regions would still be required to set up teams that will compete at next year’s youth games.

Last year’s edition of the MTC Namibia Youth Games, which was the second edition of the games, was held at Rietfontein from 16-18 December and featured sport codes such as football, netball, volleyball, basketball, boxing, tennis, athletics and para-sport.

– mkambukwe@nepc.com.na