Two-medal haul for Ishitile puts Namibia on the map

Paris 2024
  • 3 Months Ago
Lahja Ishitile has established her name among the elite level performers of Namibian sports, with her gold medal and bronze medal at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris an achievement that cannot be denied.

On Saturday in the Stade de France stadium, the 27-year-old visually impaired sprinter and her guide runner Sem Shimanda added a bronze medal in the 200 metres of the T11 class, to the historic gold medal they won in the 400 metres with a Paralympic Games record time the previous week.

Jerusa Geber Dos Santos of Brazil won the 200 final convincingly in 24.51 seconds, ahead of Lui Cuiqing of China (24.86), while Ishitile was third over the line in 25.04.

The Namibian had run a faster time (24.82) behind Cuiqing in her qualifying heat two days before.

Cuiqing remains the world record holder following her 24.36-seconds performance at the IPC world championship in Kobe, Japan earlier this year.

• On Friday, Petrus Karuli was eliminated in the heat of the T37-class 200 metres, finishing in seventh place despite his seasons-best time of 25.24 seconds. The gold medal in the final was won by the Neutral team’s Andrei Vdovin in a season’s best of 22.69 seconds, with two Brazilians taking silver and bronze.

• On Thursday night, Ananias Shikongo finished fourth and outside the medals in the final of the T11’s 100 metres.

The Namibian veteran’s time of 11.17 was a seasons best, but was no match for the gold medallist Athanasios Ghavelas of Greece (11.02), who was pressed all the way by Adolphe Timothee of France (11.05) and Dongdong Di of China (11.08).

• Johannes Nambala was also somewhat unlucky to finish fourth in the final of the T13 class 400 metres in Thursday night.

Nambala, delivering a seasons best 48.89, was beaten by Algeria’s gold medallist Skander Djamil Athmani (47.43), with the silver and bronze snatched up by Ryota Fukunaga of Japan (48.07) and Buinder Bermudez Villar of Colombia (48.83).



Medal standings

• By late yesterday, Ishitile’s gold and bronze had placed Namibia in joint 61st position on the Games’ medals table.

A total of 85 nations had won medals at the Paralympic Games in Paris since 28 August.

The medals table is headed by:

1 China, 94 gold, 220 total.

2 Great Britain, 49 gold, 124 total.

3 USA, 36 gold, 105 total.

4 Netherlands, 27 gold, 56 total.

5 Brazil, 25 gold, 89 total.