{"id":14596,"date":"2022-05-17T09:52:51","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T09:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo"},"modified":"2022-05-17T10:23:58","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T10:23:58","slug":"paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo","title":{"rendered":"Paralympian team prepares for Tokyo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>A 12-man strong Lesotho paralympian team will battle it out in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to secure qualification for the upcoming Paralympics set for Tokyo, Japan, beginning August 25 to September 6.<\/p>\n<p>According to the National Paralympics Committee of Lesotho (NAPCOL) treasurer, Thabiso Rat\u0161oane, the Port Elizabeth competition will commence on March 20 and end on March 26.<\/p>\n<p>This development follows the botched hosting of the first-ever African Para-Games that were to be used as Paralympics qualifiers, the games were scheduled for the Moroccan capital Rabat.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco shocked the continental sporting fraternity when they reserved their decision to host the event after an earlier agreement. The decision was announced after the country\u2019s former sports minister was reshuffled in cabinet and a new minister took office.<\/p>\n<p>Rat\u0161oane said because of these changes, Region 5 countries had to identify another competition to use as the qualifiers and the Port Elizabeth competition was the best option for them as it takes place within the qualification period of the Tokyo Paralympics Games qualification guide.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was a change of the minister (of sports) in Morocco and it was said the new minister ordered that the games (qualifiers) be cancelled since they would cost them a lot of money,\u201d Rat\u0161oane said in an interview with Public Eye on Tuesday this week.<\/p>\n<p>Rat\u0161oane said this decision was arrived at because Morocco indicated that they would be bound to give a facelift and upgrade their existing sports grounds to accommodate disabled athletes at their stadiums for ease of movement.<\/p>\n<p>On the qualifiers, Rat\u0161oane said six of their players will be competing at the Port Elizabeth competition as part of preparation for the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games which are set for Maseru in December this year; while the other six will be vying for slot at the upcoming Tokyo Paralympic Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSix of them are youngsters we are preparing for the Region 5 games to be held in the country in December, and the other six are senior athletes who are gearing up for places in the slot in the Tokyo Paralympics,\u201d he said. The six senior athletes are Ret\u0161elisitsoe T\u0161oeu, Bolae Lekoetje, Khotso Mojake, Mosiuoa Motsieloa, Sello Ranketu and Lit\u0161itso Khotlele.<\/p>\n<p>Khotlele goes to these qualifiers having already booked herself a place in Tokyo games, she qualified during the World Paralympics Athletics Championships which were held in Dubai in November last year, they Dubai games doubled as the Tokyo Paralympics qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKhotlele qualified with a B standard ranking in Dubai after making 8.70 in discus (and 7.13 in shotput) and now she will be looking for an A standard ranking in Port Elizabeth,\u201d Rat\u0161oane said.<\/p>\n<p>Lekoetje also tried his luck in Dubai but unfortunately had an ear problem that forced him to pull out of the competition. Rat\u0161oane said Lekoetje is now fine and looking forward to the upcoming qualifiers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. A 12-man strong Lesotho paralympian team will battle it out in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to secure qualification for the upcoming Paralympics set for Tokyo, Japan, beginning August 25 to September 6. According to the National Paralympics Committee of Lesotho (NAPCOL) treasurer, Thabiso Rat\u0161oane, the Port Elizabeth competition will commence on March [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":14595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17,16],"tags":[233,246,245,251],"class_list":["post-14596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho","tag-tokyo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Paralympian team prepares for Tokyo - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A 12-man strong Lesotho paralympian team will battle it out in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to secure qualification for ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Paralympian team prepares for Tokyo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A 12-man strong Lesotho paralympian team will battle it out in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, to secure qualification for ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-17T09:52:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-17T10:23:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_23-628377a66984f.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"420\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Paralympian team prepares for Tokyo\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-17T09:52:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-17T10:23:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\"},\"wordCount\":498,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_23-628377a66984f.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\",\"Tokyo\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/paralympian-team-prepares-for-tokyo\",\"name\":\"Paralympian team prepares for Tokyo - 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