09 Dec 2015

Francistown region has emerged victorious in this year’s Botswana Games swimming competition finals held at Clifton English Medium School.

The host district scooped 33 gold, 20 silver and ten bronze medals, outshining the other 10 districts, which took part. Gaborone region landed in the second position after pocketing six gold, six sliver and nine bronze medals. 

In third position was Kweneng team, which went home with three silver medals and one bronze, while Selibe Phikwe earned the fourth position with only six bronze medals.

The fifth and the sixth positions went to Sowa and North West with two bronze and one bronze medal respectively. 

The other five districts went home empty handed from the 11 regions that participated in the fourth edition of the national games.

In an interview with BOPA, Montsheki Mokwadi, a convenor and an additional member of the Botswana Swimming Sport Association (BSSA) indicated that unlike in the 2011 games, all the regions participated in swimming.

He also observed that the age groups increased as in the previous games, only seniors were participating. Montsheki attributed the development to training of swimming coaches by BSSA, as they trained a lot of coaches hence the spread of swimming to almost all the districts.

He cited that in 2011, Sowa and Chobe did not participate in swimming because there were no trained swimmers. Also, he applauded the government for introducing Physical Education teachers in schools, saying this assisted a great deal because the teachers coach children. 

He noted that although there are no pools in public schools, some teachers with the help of government funding utilised privately owned pools. 

Still on the growth of swimming sport, Montsheki applauded institutions such as Botswana Defence Force (BDF) who trained children on how to swim free of charge. He however said some swimmers were disqualified because as beginners, they were not yet conversant with strokes but noted that the rate of disqualification this year was better compared to the previous games.

Montsheki thanked the Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) for their sponsorship and the volunteers who ensured the competitions were a success.

He explained that the winners will compete at the upcoming swimming nationals in Gaborone today and will be selected based on their competition times.. Ends