20 Aug 2018

Despite the fact that five athletes had qualified to represent Botswana at the upcoming Youth Olympic Games, to be held in Argentina in October, Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) has only picked two athletes to represent the country.

The two, Bernard Olesitse and Kealeboga Balemogi, had qualified together with three other athletes during the third African Youth Games which were held in Algiers, Algeria recently.

Olesitse had won silver in 400m, Oarabile Tshosa won bronze in both 100 and 200 metres while Widzhani Mujangi of high jump, Bokamoso Mokgethi of triple jump and Balemogi of 400m hurdles also won bronze medals, which qualified them to represent Botswana in Argentina.

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) vice president Kenneth Kikwe said they were shocked by the CAA’s decision to leave out Tshosa, Mujangi and Mokgethi.

He said they communicated to the IAAF competitions senior manager Carlo de Angeli requesting him to clarify why only two athletes were picked instead of five, and to explain the selection criteria that was used.

Kikwe said in response De Angeli said in order to comply with the IOC principle of universality, before they could determine how many places were available in each event, they had to ensure that at least one athlete from every country was represented.

The IAAF competitions manager was reported to have said the overall number of quota places available for athletics was relatively low as it was 680 across the world instead of about 1 500 at their U18 championships.

He added that once they complied with the IOC universality principle, the places available for direct qualification were limited.

Kikwe said they were also informed that in the case of the girls’ 100m and 3 000m as well as in the case of the boys’ 800m, the number of places had to be allocated to universality places (UP).

He said their justification was that it was done on the basis of applications made to the IOC in 2017 and in agreement with the area association.

Kikwe, however, said the criteria was not fair because it picked some athletes that had finished on position seven leaving those who had won medals in Algeria.

“To be honest, the selection is demoralising to some of the athletes, but as BAA we will continue to engage them,” he said.

The IOC’s principle of universality gives an opportunity to countries who have no athletes who meet the Olympic qualification standard to compete. ENDS