NAMIBIA's national hockey teams got a rousing sendoff yesterday when they received their national colours ahead of next month's Indoor Hockey World Cup in Pretoria.
Namibia will be represented by both their men and women's teams, with the women qualifying for the third time overall, and second in succession as the African champions, while the men will be competing for the second time, following their debut in Poznan, Poland in 2011.
Namibia's deputy minister of sport, Emma Kantema-Gaomas congratulated the Namibia Hockey Union on its efforts in building the national sides, and said the government had high expectations of the teams.
"In his new year's speech president Hage Geingob deemed this year as the year of revival. You qualifying for, and potentially winning this World Cup, can revive and restore a lot of hope in the Namibian people," she said."We believe you are physically and mentally prepared for the World Cup. The Namibian people will be rooting for you all the way, and we are confident that you will finish on the winning podium at the World Cup," she added.
Kantema-Gaomas applauded the hard work that the NHU leadership and coaches had done, but called on them to double their developmental efforts throughout the country, quoting the American civil rights activist Cesar Chaves:
"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own."
Kantema-Gaomas also thanked all the sponsors for their support, including Namdia, MTC, Standard Bank and NamibRe.
The president of the NHA, Reagon Graig said the team was ready and well prepared.
"We were supposed to go about a year and a half ago and I was extremely disappointed, so I got pretty emotional and so have you I'm sure. But you know, in retrospect, just thinking about the preparations we have done, the test series and successes we've had in the mean time, I think it's actually better for us that we are going to this World Cup now in stead of a few years ago," he said.
"We are going there to win, we are not going there to participate and just show up. I think we have shown that in most of the competitions that we have played, that we are there to win," he added.
The women's team came ninth at Berlin 2018 and with inspirational captain Maggy Mengo back for one last stint at her third world cup, the team is fired up to do well.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"We are looking forward to this world cup - we want to be the surprise package, we really want to go far. Our goal is to reach the top four, but we are taking it game by game and every game will be a final for us," Mengo said.
"I think there's an exciting spirit amongst both the men and women's teams, we are super excited because we are going to Europe now for our final preparations. We will play two games against the Dutch national side and against some of their top clubs, to really see where we can improve, and to go out there and represent the country to the best of our ability," she added.
The vice captain of the men's team, Ernest Jacobs said their preparations were falling into place.
"We are feeling good, we have prepared well and things are falling into place. We had two series' against South Africa and the results were not what we wanted, but we still have two weeks here and another two in Pretoria before the world cup gets underway."
Namibia will compete in Pool A, probably the toughest group that features the world's top-ranked team and defending champions Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Kazakhstan and New Zealand.
With only the top four progressing to the knockout stages it will be tough going, but Jacobs said they fancied their chances.
"I think we can do well, it's called the Pool of Death for a reason, it's top teams that are there, but I think if we can make it out of this pool we will have better cross pools to play."
