07 Sep 2017

 Botswana is set to host the Under 20 Youth Regional Games in Gaborone next year.

In an interview, African Union Sport Council (AUSC) Region5 projects and marketing manager, Siyabonga Sangweni said he was confident that Botswana would deliver the games successfully after touring competition facilities to be used next year.

The games are expected to feature 10 sporting codes, which include basketball, boxing, netball, volleyball, athletics, including athletics for the blind, football, judo, gymnastics, swimming and tennis.

Sangweni said representatives of different codes as well as regional committee members were in Gaborone to inspect the facilities.

He said Botswana had the best facilities in the world, hence his confidence that the country would host the games with ease given that there was no need to build new infrastructure.

He said in other countries, AUSC Region5 had to build something in order to hold successful games.

They built a swimming pool in Zambia in 2012 while they also had to refurbish the swimming pool in Zimbabwe in 2014.

Facilities in Botswana, he said, were up to standard, adding that such indicated good governance, where government was pro-active in building good facilities.

He said as AUSC Region5, they were also confident that Botswana would host successful games given that the country had hosted major competitions before.  

The region, he said, was only concerned about operational issues and the capacity of the Local Organising Committee, adding however that they were confident that everything would fall into place with time.

“Regional organising committee members from 10 countries are experts in various areas of organising games, and they are here to induct the local organising committee for the 2018 Botswana regional games,” he said.

Further, he indicated that in the past, around 2 000 athletes had participated in the games.
He said because games were government-funded, Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Thapelo Olopeng would lead the games as the chairperson.

“The structure is such that the hosting sport minister becomes the games chairperson.

We were in Angola in 2016 and the sport minister in Angola is currently the chairperson and will hand over to Minister Olopeng in November,” he said.

Such arrangement, he said allowed smooth running of the competition given that as the chairperson of the hosting nation, one would be in good position to unblock a lot of things.

He said as AUSC Region5, they were looking forward to have successful games.

Meanwhile, the regional games had been running since 2004 and Botswana would host the eighth edition.

Botswana would host athletes from 10 AUSC Region5 member states, which include Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. ENDS