18 Oct 2018

Botswana athletics coach, Mogomotsi Otsetswe is attending an International Coaching Enrichment Certificate Programme (ICECP) in the United States of America.

According to the ICECP website, the certificate programme is an intensive coaches’ education programme consisting of lectures, projects, guest speakers, candidate presentations, group work, field trips and project planning and implementation. 

It says the programme is open to international coaches and US coaches, and will consist of four modules scheduled over an academic year.

 In addition, candidates will work with an international tutor to develop a personal project that will be implemented for the benefit of the respective sport or sport in general in that country.

The ICECP is open to coaches from all sports that operate in the Olympic programming. However, for international ICECP applicants, preference is given to coaches from archery, field hockey, rugby, tennis, athletics, fencing, swimming, volleyball, basketball, judo, table tennis, weightlifting, boxing, rowing taekwondo and wrestling.

Otsetswe said in an interview that the course was sponsored by the USA Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs, Delaware University, and that it dealt with high performance training, long-term athlete development, nutrition, psychology mindfulness and doping.

He said the course was important given that they were taught how to make clean energy drinks that would help athletes reduce using contaminated supplements.

He said he started the course in August through video technology before going to the USA, adding that it would run until March and that most of the time they would be using video technology. He added that he would be expected to attend classed in Switzerland so that he could graduate.

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) president, Thari Mooketsi said the course would benefit the country given that more emphasis would be on development and elite athletes.

He said BAA’s mission was to continue unleashing world-beaters hence they were happy that Otsetswe was one of the participants.

Furthermore, Mooketsi said their mission was to also conduct coaching courses to empower unqualified coaches in the country.

Furthermore, he said they were working to conduct two courses, adding that most of their active coaches were not qualified hence they found it prudent to close the gap.

 “We do have qualified coaches like Bobby Gaseitsiwe, Justice Dipeba, Otsetswe, Chilume Ntshwarang, Kago Tladinyane, the list is endless, but the challenge is that most of them are not active,” he said. ENDS