Women beach volleyball players make their mark in Cape Verde, bringing home a first-ever Silver
Namibian beach volleyball aces, Julia Laggner (left) and Kim Seebach, made history together with their coach, James Verrinder (middle), when they became the first-ever local team to collect silver medals at the recent African Beach Games in Isla de Sal, Cape Verde.
Reflecting upon their major achievement, Verrinder said “After several great competitions over the last five years including 5th place at the CAVB Cup of Nations in 2015 and 7th place at the CAVB Continental Cup Finals in 2016, participating was not enough for Seebach and Laggner, and they set out to dominate their competition.”
Seventeen countries entered female teams for the beach volleyball tournament. These played in four groups with the Namibian team competing against the DRC, Mozambique and Morocco.
The two first beat Morocco 2:1 and Congo 2:0 but were beaten by Mozambique in a really tight match 2:1. This left them in second place in the group and they moved into the quarter finals against Angola, winning by two sets to zero.
In the semi-finals they beat Kenya before facing Morocco again in the finals.
But the Moroccon team has improved since their first encounter earlier in the games, eventually beating the Namibians to the gold. Although the two Namibians had to settle for silver, it was an historic first-ever Silver.
Upon their return to Namibia, Coach Verrinder commented “This result and performance was a long time coming after we started working together at the end of 2014. The girls are so talented and have a real passion for the game. The Games overall were really well organized and a huge thank you goes to the Namibian Olympic Committee for supporting us going to the Games.”
