Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana’s 4x400m mixed relay team of Leungo Scotch, Obakeng Kamberuka, Bayapo Ndori and Galefele Moroko has won a bronze medal at the CAA Africa Athletics Championship in Cameroon.
The team clocked a time of 3:15.93 while South Africa won the race with a time of 3:13.12 and Nigeria came second with 3:17.72.
The team’s coach, Justice Dipeba said their objective was to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, but that they failed because the ladies also wanted to qualify in their individual capacity and ran many races.
“It was difficult to convince them to drop their individual events and focus on the bigger picture of qualifying for the Olympics,” he said.
Dipeba said the championship was also not well organised and frustrating to both athletes and officials.
Meanwhile, Olympic bound sprinter, Letsile Tebogo was disqualified in 100 metres after a false start.
BOTSWANA LOST BID TO GHANA
24 Jun 2024
Botswana has lost the bid to host 2026 Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Africa Senior Athletics Championships to Ghana.
Botswana was voted by three delegates, while Ghana which recently hosted the African Games garnered 12 votes.
Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) vice president Oabona Theetso confirmed in an interview that they had submitted their intension to bid for the next edition.
He thanked the three CAA council member who voted for Botswana, adding that it was painful for them given that they had wanted the championships to be hosted in Botswana.
He said the main objective of submitting the bid was to show Africa the flora and fauna of the country as well to demonstrate that athletics in Botswana was growing.
“ As you know sport on its own can contribute immensely to the GDP and had we won the rights to host, all African countries including, athletes, coaches and spectators were going to come to Botswana, enhancing sport tourism,” he said.
Furthermore Theetso said Ghana recently hosted the African Games while the last edition of the Championships were held in Nigeria, and that alone would had been good for the council to consider another region.
He said they had also hoped that the council would again consider that Botswana was a country which had peace and stability.
Theetso however said the defeat would not deter them for bidding for other competitions, adding that there were other competition in the calendar.
Asked about why their bid seemed secretive, BAA vice president said they had consulted Botswana National Sport Council which gave them a green light. nal, Tsaone Sebele finished fifth and Thapelo Monaiwa also finished fifth in long jump.
Lee Eppie and Boitumelo Masilo did not even proceed to the final.
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