01 Mar 2016

Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) is aiming to win two medals at the 2016 Rio Olympic to be held in Brazil in August.

Addressing a press conference recently, BNOC chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho said they had a target of two medasl in 2012, and they found it prudent to aim for the same target.

The target, he said, was set based on the quality of athletes they have at their disposal, at the time of setting the targets.

Serufho said while they were doing their best to prepare the athletes for Rio, people should be cognisant of the fact that other countries were not resting on their laurels, as they were also busy trying to ensure that they deny Botswana the one medal they won in 2012

“Kenya is not relaxing and other athletes that Nijel denied a podium finish in 2012 or at the Commonwealth Games are also busy strategizing on how they will ensure they perform better than Nijel,” he saidHe  also noted that they set their target by looking at the resources they had and the level of athletes, adding that they want to remain realistic.

Talking about the progress of athletes who have qualified, he said they recently visited Nijel at his Potchefstroom base to check on his progress in terms of training, adding that the committee would  send someone to check Onkabetse Nkobolo’s progress in Spain, adding that his organisation has a robust monitoring and support programme.

“We have previously sent someone to go and check our athletes in Tunisia, we have sent one of our colleagues in the secretariat to support the volleyball team that was in Cameroon, and we will be monitoring other teams moving forward,” he said.

Serufho further said Nkobolo, just like Nijel, would be visited, adding that in the interim they were banking on Nkobolo and his coach to give them updates about his performance.

As for Isaac Makwala, he noted that he was currently in Botswana under the watchful eye of his coach, Justice Dipeba.

Team Botswana chef de mission, Moses Moruisi said prospective members of the 4x400metre relay team were  busy training. He added that just like individual athletes, they would have the opportunity to compete abroad as part of their preparations. He said they also hope that they could qualify as individual athletes.

He said the boxing team left late last month for Rabat, Morocco, for an intensive training camp to prepare for the AIBA Olympic qualifiers that commence this month in Cameroon.
Moruisi said the judo team was currently training in Tunisia, adding that since January the team was in intensive training in Japan. He noted that their final qualifiers would be held in April.

He said athletics and swimming athletes have up to July to qualify, and that the final team would be announced in July.
He said their preparations and participation at the games were funded by both the government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through the Olympic Solidarity (OS) Department.

Morusi said while the government granted the Olympic committee about P9million towards Rio preparations, the Olympic Solidarity has been supporting BNOC since 2013 through a series of athlete preparations focusing on Rio 2016.

On anti-doping, he noted that doping scandals have rocked the sporting fraternity in the last couple of months, and that Botswana has not been spared with two rugby players testing positive for banned substances in December.  

“Without  leaving anything to chance, we have taken a deliberate decision to scale up our fight against the scourge of doping while our regular education and testing programmes will continue in 2016,” adding that for athletes attempting to or already qualified for Rio, “we have a robust education and testing programme in place.”

Moruisi added that they have already started testing athletes, and that the plan was that those who would go to Rio would have been tested a few times before they go.
Most of the tests, he said, were  done out of competition where they visit athletes unannounced and test them.

“The idea is that we catch the athletes when they least expect us such that they would not have the opportunity to attempt to cheat the system,” he said. Ends