Africa-Press – Lesotho. Veteran athlete and coach, Chaplin Mokete Mpomane says the two athletes; ‘Neheng Khatala and her husband Khoarahlane Seutloali, who presented Lesotho at 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan over the weekend performed to
the best of their abilities. Khatala competed with 88 contestants during the women Marathon on Saturday and managed to finish on the 20th position while her husband Seutloali stands on the position 67 respectively out of 106
male marathoners who ran on Sunday. Mpomane told Informative Sport that the couple represented the country very well taking into consideration that they were
competing against the best athletes in the world. “As a coach I personally consider this performance very good following the fact that our runners did not
get the good chance to prepare in an effective manner. Number of competitions also determines the performance standard of an athlete so Khatala and Seutloali
had never been on any similar competition with Olympic in teams of standard because they were only running locally as compared to runners from other countries,” said Mpomane
“Most of the people usually blame runners for poor performance without considering other internal factors that lead to those bad outcomes.
One of the factors that I think contributed to this performance is that; the country did not help the runners with preparations by sending them to overseas tournaments as to
improve their standard before the 2020 Olympics start,” he said. “We cannot prepare for an international event of this magnitude without competing in international competitions, we are still celebrating and sending warmest congratulations
to Khalata for doing well. I know it was absolutely tough for Seutloali but he also did well under the circumstances, moreover, it was a tough race indeed as
Seutloali managed to finish at position 67 in 02:25:03. Congratulation to him and we hope that next time he will do even better,” concluded Mpomane. According to Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC)
statement, Khalata is the first Mosotho woman to finish among the top 20 in an Olympic marathon. At the 2012 London Olympic, Lesotho marathon woman runner,
‘Mamoroallo Tjoka finished 90th out of 107 athletes, clocking in
2:43:15. Tjoka failed to finish the race at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China after she dropped out due to an injury. This was Khatala and Seutloali’s maiden appearance at the Olympics Games.
