20 Sep 2016

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) will leave no stone unturned at the coming 7th edition of the African Union Sport Council (AUSC) Region 5 Games to be staged in Luanda, Angola on December 4-16, 2016.
Team manager, Olebogeng Oitebetse said in an interview that their intention was to surpass their 2014 AUSC Region 5 Games performance.
Team Botswana scooped position four out of 10 countries.
With 23 participating athletes, the team amassed six gold medals, five silver and four bronze medals.
The team manager said preparations were going well, adding that part of their team competed at the Africa Junior Championships, which were held in Zambia.She said the Zambia meet was part of their preparations, given that most of the athletes who took part might make a cut in the coming AUSC Region 5 games.
Again, she said 10 athletes who competed at the IAAF World U20 Championships, in Bydgoszcz would also make part of the team.
“I will say we are expecting to do best than the last AUSC 2014 Games. We had our first camp in July 17-28 in Gaborone and 22 athletes attended the camp in which 10 athletes left the camp to go for Junior Championships in Poland and only 12 athletes remained in camp,” she said.
The camp, she said was important as it helped the coaches to gauge athletes who were fit and also gave the technical team time to plan for the games.
Currently, she said there was an out-of- school camp, which started on September 11-26 in Gaborone.
She said the team would leave Botswana for Angola on December 6.
The team will be under the tutelage of Nanniso Magwamba, Isaac Mbise and Kgomotso Molapisi.
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are all members of the AUSC Region 5.ENDS