Namibia represents well at national tournament

The Namibian Basketball Federation (NBF) with the aid of the Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC) recently sent a six-person delegation to Gaborone, Botswana for the annual u18 3x3 IBF Young Lions Cup Tournament. The team of six left for Gaborone on Thursday, 26 November 2019 for their 5 day stay at the Oasis motel. Making up the delegation were a male team of four: Noah Hilengwa, Ngatjikare Tjitamunisa, Javier Nghishilenapo and Pedro Pasile. Also wearing national colors were Petrina Aron, International Basketball Federation, IBF Beneficiary and Mantius Amukosh, first ever, 3x3 Unite Youth Leader. The tournament run under the theme 3x3 Unite.This looked at guiding the Youth Leaders towards problem solving for the issues hindering sport growth in their respective countries and life skills issues with the players present. Petrina Aron who shared her life story as a guest speaker during the tournament said she was very grateful to International Basketball Federation (FIBA) ,IBF and 3x3 Unites for allowing her the opportunity to speak about her journey through life and how sport has been a major life changing tool for her. Amukoshi said 'Being the first ever 3x3 Youth Leader to represent the country is such an honour and It was a wonderful learning experience, I cannot wait to implement the skills shared to me during the workshop in our basketball community'. Pedro Pasile scooped the Male IBF Leadership Award thanks to his outlook on the necessity of having the girl child represented more in sports. 'I believe that we need to keep pushing girls to join sports and give them the same respect in the field of play just as we do with male athletes' He said. Pasile was recognised with a trophy for this achievement. This year's tournament took a different approach to those prior, by having a mixed-team set up. This saw the players from the various countries playing with new faces and having to learn to bond with unfamiliar cultures and as well overcome language barriers. With that , our four players did not play together as Team Namibia but each represented the country in unified teams. One of our players, Noah Hilengwa was on the winning team for the tournament and brought back a gold medal for team Namibia.
Courtesy of: Namibian Basketball Federation