Namibia made its mark amongst the world’s best inline hockey teams when their women’s team came fourth overall at the world championships in Asuncion, Paraguay over the weekend.
After winning the bronze medal in the junior women’s category two years ago, Namibia has now also made its mark in the senior women’s category.
Namibia cruised through their group matches unbeaten, after beating USA 3-2, Chile 19-0, Mexico 5-2 and Brazil 12-1 to finish on top of their group.
In the quarterfinals Namibia beat Italy 3-2 to reach the senior women’s semifinals for the first time in history.
Danielle Dobberstein opened the scoring, but Italy struck back to take a 2-1 lead with 13 minutes to go.
Italy’s keeper pulled off numerous saves before Leighzene Coetzee scored the equaliser to send the match into extra time.
Here Coetzee once again found the net after a pass from Christine Röttcher to put Namibia into the semifinals, where they came up against France.
Namibia got off to a strong start with Coetzee putting them 1-0 ahead at halftime, but France stepped up their attacks in the second half. They took the lead after two goals in quick succession, and the more in the final six minutes gave France a comprehensive 5-1 victory.
In the bronze medal match Namibia came up against the USA for the second time but this time they ended up on the losing side, going down 5-3.
Röttcher gave Namibia an early lead, but USA equalised just before halftime.
The momentum swung USA’s way in the second half, scoring four unanswered goals, and although Coetzee pulled back two late goals for Namibia it was not enough as USA won the match 5-3.
Spain won the women’s title after beating France 3-2 in the final.
Namibia meanwhile finished seventh in the junior men’s category after beating Colombia 5-1 in their final match on Friday.
Abe van der Merwe led the way with two goals, while Konrad du Toit, Vincent Scholz and Sascha Guttzeit scored one goal each.
In their earlier matches they lost 12-3 to Spain, beat the USA 1-0, beat Brazil 5-2, lost 6-3 to Slovakia, and lost 4-3 to Chinese Taipei.
Italy won the junior men’s title after beating France 7-5 in the final.
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