Africa-Press – Lesotho. Lesotho’s netball umpire, Mr Abiel Lekulo last week became the second Lesotho’s netball umpire with Africa Netball Grade B Award after Chakatsa Lephole.
Lekulo was awarded after being assessed at the South Africa Male Netball Championships held at Hoy Park Netball Courts in Durban, South Africa early this month.
Talking to Informative Sport after receiving the award, Lekulo stated that with the B Award he will now be able to umpire at Youth Regional World Cup Qualifiers, Confederation of Southern Africa Netball Associations (Cosana) games, South African Senior Championships and at Local Leagues.
He added that his target now will be to acquire the African Netball A Award. “I am so happy, this award means a lot to me. At the same time I feel relieved from the stress that I was going through while awaiting the results,” mentioned Lekulo.
Lekulo also gave thanks to Lephole who has been monitoring him, further giving credit to Lesotho Netball Association (LNA) for grooming him from the grassroots.
Last month but one (August) Lekulo was at the Africa Coaching and Officiating Framework (ACOF) held in Zambia where he completed his phase two and three of the course. Therefore he was officially declared an umpires’ tutor and tester at Africa Grade C Level.
Lesotho’s highest ranked umpire Lephole (International Umpire Award holder) as the one who was monitoring Lekulo all along said Lekulo is one of Lesotho’s promising umpires to date.
He added that this is a good step and direction by Lekulo and that Lesotho National Association (LNA) has to be proud of Lekulo. “Lekulo also should be proud because he sacrificed a lot to prepare for this award, his hard work finally paid off,” said Lephole.
On the other hand LNA public relations officer Mrs Boiketlo Hanyane earlier told Informative Sport that having high qualified umpires will be a huge befit to the netball family as she believes all the skills and knowledge acquired by Lekulo will be transferred to other existing and aspiring local umpires.
