19 Apr 2018

A total of five medals, three gold, one silver and a bronze won at the just-ended 2018 Commonwealth Games is by no means a small  achievement for a country that boasts no sophisticated sporting facilities. Ranked 16 overall in the medal standing at the Commonwealth Games behind superpowers Australia, England and Kenya among others, it is no doubt that Botswana is a superpower in track events.Botswana’s performances on the global stage have come of age and are always favourites for podium finishes in most international events.

The country’s sporting heroes and heroines continue to show resilience and brilliance when pitted against some of the best competitors in the world.In recognition of the athletes’ heroics at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, government has put in place incentives for the athletes.

Speaking at Team Botswana welcome dinner ceremony, Acting President Slumber Tsogwane stated that for the current team, gold medalists would receive P100 000, silver medalists P75 000 bronze medalists P50 000 reward while other finalists would get P5 000 each.

The total incentive package for the Commonwealth participants he said would be over P1.3 million.He said it was fitting for government to reward the team as they demonstrated growth and excellence in competing with the best athletes from around the world and the team’s commitment and efforts had been exceptional.

Tsogwane indicated that, in a space of 10 days during the Games duration, the athletes managed to send a positive image to the world that impacted positively on the country’s relation with other countries including Commonwealth member states

The team’s performance, he said, was a challenge for government to work harder in all aspects to ensure continuous improvement so as to maintain as well as exceed the current results.

“As a team, you have given all stakeholders reason to come forth and support sport more than ever before, because you have shown the great potential of sport as an avenue for diversification of economic activity,” he said.

He said it was time for government and business community to collaborate with much greater momentum and enhance investment in sport.In addition, he called upon all stakeholders to come forth to participate in sports as economic actors as such a collective effort could grow the sport sector and reap greater rewards.

He emphasised the importance of athletes development at grass root, adding that the school sport system was critical to that development, hence the role of teachers could not be over emphasised as the sports industry has the potential to create jobs both on and off the field of play.

For his part, Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Thapelo Olopeng pleaded with the business community to engage athletes to market their products as this would further grow sport in Botswana and at the same time enhance athletes brand value.

Olopeng said government would build community sports fields in 10 constituencies to the tune of P50 million.

This, he said, would help athletes to use state of the art facilities to practice for local and international competitions, adding that government was also in the process of setting up a secretariat for athletics in the next three months. ENDS