10 Jul 2016

As part of Olympic preparations, Team Botswana left on Friday for Dusseldorf, Germany for training camp.

Both the team coach and psychologist were confident that the Dusseldorf training camp will fully prepare athletes for the Rio Olympics Games to be staged next month at Rio.

Team psychologist, Dr Tshepang Tshube said in an interview that the training camp would prepare the athletes both mentally and physically.

He said it was important for them to move away from Botswana and be in an exclusive place so that they could fully focus on the competition.

“I personally think Germany is a good place for them, some of the athletes have trained there before so I don’t think they will encounter any problem there,” he said.

Furthermore, Dr Tshube said he was buoyant that athletes were even ready for the competition given that most of them performed very well at the just ended 20^th CAA African Senior Championships, and that alone has given them a lot of confidence.

He said if they managed to do well at the 20^th CAA African Senior Championships, they were in good position to even do well at the World Junior Championships and at the Olympics.

“Psychologically, we have prepared the young athletes to be confident, whether in a big or small stage, we told them they are top athletes  and they are great.

He said of course there could be stage fright, but the fundamental thing was that they have to reassure them that, they have trained and talented enough to handle big stages like Olympics.

Team Botswana, national team coach, Justice Dipeba said the team was going to Germany just to make sure that the final leg of their preparation was well done.

He said also there was a couple of competition organised in Germany that would help the technical team to work in any area that might be lagging behind.

“We also decided to go there due to warm weather, and as we are working on speed, it always worked better in a warm weather,” he said.

Dipeba further said the team was ready, given that they have been preparing well both for the Olympics and the IAAF World U20 Championships to be staged in Bydgoszcz, Poland on July 19-24.

“Nijel Amos will not be going to Kenya for training. He will be based in Germany with the rest of the team. We told him he is a role model to youngsters like Baboloki Thebe and Karabo Sibanda hence training with them will motivate them,” he said.

Christene Botlogetswe said Germany training camp would assist them as athletes to record good times, because they have not been training properly due to cold weather.

“My intention is to train well and ultimately improve my time so that I can clock good times at the Olympics,” she said.

Onkabetse Nkobolo said the training camp would help them as 400 metres runner to be together at the same place.

“As you might be aware I am based in Spain. So training together away from home will fully help us to strategies for the competition,” he said. ENDS