{"id":12529,"date":"2026-01-09T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/12529\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T05:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:12:08","slug":"mxc-saint-marys-junior-divan-du-plooy-to-compete-in-world-athletics-cross-country-championships-for-home-nation-of-namibia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/12529\/","title":{"rendered":"MXC | Saint Mary&#8217;s Junior Divan Du Plooy to Compete in World Athletics Cross Country Championships for Home Nation of Namibia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MORAGA, Calif. \u2014 After a strong collegiate cross country season, Saint Mary&#8217;s junior <a href=\"https:\/\/smcgaels.com\/sports\/mens-cross-country\/roster\/divan-du-plooy\/7099\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"7099\" target=\"_blank\">Divan Du Plooy<\/a> is headed to the World Athletics Cross Country Championships to represent his home country of Namibia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Du Plooy finished the 2025 cross country season on a high note at both the West Coast Conference Championships and the NCAA West Regionals. At the WCC Championships, the junior finished his 8k in 23:42.8 and earned ninth place overall. His top-10 finish marked the first time a Saint Mary&#8217;s runner received the title of First Team All-WCC honors since 2016 and helped the Gaels to earn fourth place overall, the second-best finish in program history. He followed that up at the West Regionals by finishing in the top-50, helping the Gaels to their best finish since 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The World Athletics Cross Country Championships will take place in Tallahassee, Florida, on Saturday, January 10th at the course at Apalachee Regional Park. Du Plooy is the first Saint Mary&#8217;s runner to compete at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships. The race will begin at 12:20 PM local time \/ 9:20 AM pacific time. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/worldathletics.org\/competitions\/world-athletics-cross-country-championships\/tallahassee26\/where-to-watch?countryCode=US\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> for race streaming information.<\/p>\n<p>#GaelsRise&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MORAGA, Calif. \u2014 After a strong collegiate cross country season, Saint Mary&#8217;s junior Divan Du Plooy is headed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102],"class_list":{"0":"post-12529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-namibia","8":"tag-namibia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}