22 Jan 2018

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) will host a series of international events under Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Southern Africa Region 5.

The country will host International relays in March, followed by Gaborone International Meet in April while BAA under the auspices of CAA Southern Africa Region 5 will host Invitational Meet and National Senior Championships in May.

This comes after Southern Africa Region 5 meeting last year, which was held in South Africa, resolved that there was need for the region to reinvent itself and launched new competition called the CAA SR Track and Field Series.  

According to CAA Southern Africa president, Moses Bantsi there would be a series of competitions in the region to be hosted by amongst others Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Zambia.  

As Region 5, he said they had realised that there was more talent in the region, but athletes did not produce expected results in major games.

Further, he said most countries in the region had failed to send their athletes to Europe while those who managed had sent only a few; hence the need to  improve performance as the region by hosting more competitions.

Bantsi said they wanted competitions that would be able to prepare athletes for major international competitions as well as unearth and nurture talent within the region.

He said the arrangement would also reduce the costs of sending athletes to Europe as more resources would be channelled to development.

“If we can hold these competitions successfully, we would bring more stakeholders. We want to make athletics to be the number one Olympic sport within the region and as we speak we are working on a regional website that would help us disseminate our information,” he said.

Bantsi further said expectations were that the series would produce a competition similar to the IAAF Diamond League.

BAA vice president, Kenneth Kikwe said they were happy with CAA Southern Africa Region 5 inventions adding that the arrangement would improve the level of competitions in the region.

He pointed out that the idea of coming up with SR Track and Field Series followed meetings by member states on the sidelines of the Olympic Games in Rio, the IAAF World Championships in London, and the CAA Congress in Rabat, where they both agreed that they should come up competitions that would help the Southern Region grow. ENDS