Africa-Press – Lesotho. Lesotho will this year compete only in six disciplines at the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Under 20 Youth Games set for Gaborone Botswana from the 4th to 17th December 2018.
The Lesotho team’s General Manager, Mrs ‘Mathabo Lelimo told this publication that Lesotho will be represented under Lawn Tennis, Ladies Soccer, Volleyball (men), Athletics, Athletics for Visually Impaired and Boxing.
Meanwhile, Informative Sport learned that the Lawn tennis team will be made up of four men athletes and three women athletes while Ladies soccer team is made up of 20 players.
The volleyball men team has 12 players while boxing has only five men. Athletics team consists of nine men athletes and eight women. The visually impaired athletics category will have five men and two women.
The team will entail a total of 21 team’s officials being; coaches, assistant coaches and teams’ managers excluding other officials that will be included in the delegate.
Lelimo indicated that in the meantime the athletes are still training under the guidance of their respective national sports federations and associations.
She said initially they were to have a joint winter camp during the schools winter break but that failed due to budget constraints, therefore she said they are planning to stage one in the forthcoming Independence Holidays.
Lesotho will also be hosting the same games in 2020 and Maseru will the host City for the 2022 African Youth Games (AYG). Therefore Lelimo said they wanted to take many sporting codes to Botswana games as she hopes the games will be used as a learning curve for Lesotho.
In order for Lesotho to perform well while hosting two above mentioned youth games, Lelimo believes it will be wise for them to start preparing the athletes for those games soon after the Botswana games.
On the other hand, Lesotho Volleyball Association (LVA) Public Relations Officer, Mr Buller Phalatsi said they had already started preparing their athletes for Botswana games even though he said it is not easy to get the players together as they are busy with their studies.
As for boxing, the Lesotho Boxing Association (Leba) Public Relations Officer, Mr Katiso Tšenoli said they are planning to stage some under age tournaments late this month as part of getting their boys ready.
