Team South Africa is competing to the Region 5 Games in Namibia, where a squad of 198 athletes representing 12 different sports competing in Windhoek and Swakopmund, will fly the country’s flag. Here is a breakdown of what these Games are all about.
- There are 10 countries attending the Games – Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- These Games began as a project by the African Union Sport Council and Namibia is the 11th such staging.
- There were will be an estimated 2500 athletes competing across 12 sports in Namibia – athletics, athletics visually impaired, basketball, boxing, football, judo, karate, netball, Special Olympics, swimming, table tennis, tennis and volleyball.
- The last such Games were held in Lilongwe, Malawi in 2022, where Team SA topped the medals table with 106 medals, of which 60 were gold.
- At the last Games (Lilongwe 2022), Team SA won 33 swimming gold medals. They had won 25 swimming golds at the previous Games in Maseru.
- The youngest members of Team SA are the 14-year-olds Aphelele Zulu, Amile Qavane, Kananelo Moloi (basketball) and Romano Segehle and Maya Mgcina (swimming).
- Previous Team SA athletes who have gone on to bigger things include Olympians Wayde van Niekerk, Caster Semenya, Michael Houlie, Kyle Blignaut and Dune Coetzee.
- The football tournament doubles up as the Cosafa Under-20. Zambia have won five of the last 10 men’s stagings, with Team SA winning four times and Mozambique once.
- The action will be captured on Team SA’s website as well as its social media channels.
- Athletics, visually impaired athletics, Special Olympics and swimming competitions will be held in Swakopmund, with the other sports being staged in Windhoek.
