Youngsters qualify for African beach volleyball championship

The beach at the Mole in Swakopmund attracted crowds of spectators last Saturday, 23 March who came to watch the first Bank Windhoek Namibian Open Beach Volleyball Competition in conjunction with the Zone VI Youth Qualifications. Players from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia displayed high level competitions – South Africa dominating most of the games.
South Africa owned the top spot of the podium in most categories due to controlled team-play and consistency. The only Namibian champions in the tournament were boys Tin Hlupic and Gerard Fischer.
The teams in the youth competition played for the qualification of the African Championships, for which the winners and runner-up of each category qualified. Among them were the three Namibian teams Tin Hlupic and Gerard Fischer (youth boys), the second placed Lientjie Titus and Maike Brand (youth girls) and the runner up in the Junior Boys category, Gero Talkenberg and Bernard Schurz.
This was the second year the Namibia Volleyball Federation (NVF) hosted an international Beach Volleyball Tournament in Swakopmund over the Independence weekend.
“We initiated this competition due to popular request of local, as well as international participants. It is our strategy to grow this event into an International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) satellite event,” said NVF president, Heiko Diehl.
The Namibian Volleyball Federation managed to get high profile sponsors on board for the event, which contributed to the success of the tournament. Besides Bank Windhoek and KIA Namibia as the main sponsors, Tropizone, Bose, Alphatronics, Fx Fitness and Container World granted their support for the competition.