THE 22nd Commonwealth Games kick off in Birmingham tomorrow with team Namibia settled in and raring to go.
Some of the first Namibian athletes who will be in action are the triathletes who will be competing in the men and women's individual races tomorrow, as well as the mixed team triathlon on Sunday.
Hesron Kapanga, the journalist accompanying the team, spoke to some of the triathletes ahead of tomorrow's event and they all seemed relaxed and looking forward to the event.
Divan du Plooy, who will be competing in the men's individual race said he was well prepared.
"I'm more than ready, and everything went well with my preparations over the past few months. I had a few competitions in between and I'm happy with my progress," he said.
"I had to work on my swimming a lot, but that has improved and my main goal is just to have a good swim and to see how close I can get to the front guys out of the water.
"I'm very relaxed because I've seen all the people that I'm competing against on TV, so I know what they are capable of. So Im feeling much more relaxed and hopefully I can finish amongst the top 20, or top 15 if its a really good day," he said.
Anri Krugel and Imke Jagau will be competing in the women's individual triathlon, with Krugel saying that she just wanted to enjoy the experience, while Jagau set some goals that she wanted to achieve.
"I have prepared very well - I trained a lot and also competed in several competitions in Germany. This is my first Commonwealth Games and my goal is just to beat my personal best in the individual performance, and then in the team performance we have identified some teams that we want to beat," she said.
On Sunday they will be joined by cyclists JP Burger and Drikus Coetzee in the team triathlon, while they will also be competing in the cycling time trial on 4 August and the road race on 7 August.
"I've prepared well so I'm hoping for the best - I'm expecting the worst, but I'm praying for the best," Burger said.
"Drikus and I have been training here since Sunday, so we've done three or four rides already. The road surface is OK, the traffic has been quite busy, but luckily it will be closed down on race day," he added.
"We've been out on the course a couple of times and I think the course really suits me - there are not so many hills, so I'm really looking forward to it," Coetzee said.
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"Ive been settling in quite well and I'm starting to feel better now after arriving two days ago. I'm really looking forward for the other team mates to join in as well, so that we can go and look at the course and start our tactics," he added.
The first swimming events will also start tomorrow with Namibia's two swimmers Xander Skinner and Ronan Wantenaar both looking forward to the competition.
"I've been preparing hard for the past few months now, so I'm ready and I felt good in the water today. I've had a long travel the last few days, so I'm actually surprised about how good I felt, so I'm feeling excited and I'm ready to go," Skinner said.
"I definitely want to improve on my personal best times and try and break some of my Namibian records. I also want to get a top 16 place and make the semifinals in either the 50m or 100m freestyle," he added.
"I think Im quite prepared for this competition, I had a competition about three weeks ago where I set a personal best time, and I think with the amount of training Ive done, I can go even faster," Wantenaar said.
"My goal is definitely to set new personal best times and my end goal is to reach some Olympic qualifying times as well," he added.
