22 Sep 2016

Botswana national U-20 handball teams left for South Africa to take part in a six-day International Handball Federation (IHF) tournament. 

In an interview, the team’s head coach, Harvinder Singh Dhaliwal said while he acknowledges that the sport is new in the country, he believes that both the young men and women teams were well prepared for the tournament. 

“We have a league with about eight schools who took part in the competition a month ago, and it was a very competitive league,” he said. 

Singh Dhaliwal was of the view that due to their extensive training programme, the young athletes were ready for the IHF tournament. 

He said their aim was to do better than the last time.

 Considering the team’s good training, he believed they would perform to their level best. 

Singh Dhaliwal explained that two years back, they took part in the same competition in Zambia, and they managed to beat Swaziland. 

Although they lost against other countries like South Africa and Zambia, Singh Dhaliwal attributed their losses to lack of experience. 

However, he said this time around the teams were in a better position and the training they did was to elevate their playing skills. 

“Since Zambia IHF, we managed to retain half of our players and this means this time around we have a bit of experience in our teams,” he added. 

 Also, he said he was fortunate to had gone to the Rio Olympics as an observer for Handball Association of Botswana (HAB), where he had an exposure to extensive skills of playing handball. 

That, he said came in handy since he managed to impart the knowledge on his players. 

He said it was easy for the players to adjust to his training, which seeks to improve their playing. 

For his part, the president of HAB, Professor Ignatius Onyewadume urged the players to do their best. 

Though Professor Onyewadume also aknowlegded that the sport is still new in Botswana, he was impressed by how the young team has been improved. 

He said he sees improvement every time he watched them play. 

Furthermore, he told the players to show character and represent Botswana well, saying he believes that they would make their mark in the competitions. Ends