08 Apr 2014

Botswana Wrestling Federation (BWF) received a massive boost recently when the African Confederation of Associated Wrestling Styles (CALA) gave them a FILA approved wrestling mat.

CALA made the announcement that it was giving the mat to BWF at the senior African Wrestling Championships held in Tunisia recently. Lack of a proper wrestling mat was identified by the local wrestling body as a major hindrance for holding wrestling tournaments.

The mat, worth around P450 000, was expected to help BWF hold more wrestling contests as it endeavoured to increase the popularity of the sport.

“Botswana Wrestling Federation became the first federation in Africa to be assisted by the African Confederation of Associated Wrestling Styles (CALA) after CALA decided to start a programme that will help and support African national wrestling federations this year with wrestling equipment. All the 44 countries doing wrestling in Africa were given the chance to vote for the country that will benefit this year and, as a federation we appealed to all the countries to vote us and they did vote us,” said BWF secretary general Lillian Jameson.

Jameson said CALA vice-president, Manie Van Den Berg, who was also the South African Wrestling Federation secretary general, received the certificate of the mat on behalf of BWF. She explained that the mat will be forwarded to Botswana within one month.

“Now, Batswana will start to see wrestling activities because our main challenge to kick-start wrestling in Botswana was lack of a wrestling mat. We were unable to buy a wrestling mat because of the small grant that we get from BNSC (Botswana National Sports Council).Our activities for this year will start on a high note,” Jameson said.

The president of BWF, Moagi Sharp was elated by the gift from CALA. He said he had worked tirelessly to ensure that the federation acquired a mat.

“Lack of a proper wrestling mat has been a major concern for our federation, and acquiring it was a big challenge because of unavailability of funds. It is the most important equipment in wrestling and we are relieved to have finally acquired it. We were wondering if we would ever have it,” said Sharp.

Sharp said the federation had been using a karate mat in its past tournaments, but using a proper wrestling mat would put local wrestlers in good stead for international events.

He said wrestling has been growing at a tremendous rate since the federation was registered five years ago. ENDS