27 Mar 2019

In 1980 Golekane Mosweu made history by being amongst the first Batswana to compete at the Olympic Games in Moscow, Russia.

Even though he did not do well, the now 70–year-old Mosweu still treasures that achievement and counts it as an experience he would never forget.

Wearing track-pants, a t-shirt and takkies, Mosweu sits comfortably in the lounge of his house and explains in an interview that his passion for the sport would never diminish. 

To this day, he said he took time to run in the morning as a way of keeping fit.

“I run from Peleng to the high court and I time myself,” he said, adding that running has kept him fit and that he was never sick.

Detailing how he fell in love with running to the point that he ended up putting his country on the map, Mosweu said he has enjoyed fitness from a young age.

He said his journey in athletics started in South Africa where he worked as a labourer in the mines for many years.

He worked in the platinum mines of Rustenburg from 1966 to 1971 and later moved to Gauteng to work at Kloof Mine.

He said some white people came knocking on the doors of their hostels one day looking for people who had interest in sports.

Mosweu said he was eager to participate and chose athletics because he believed that he was talented in that area.

Together with three others from Botswana, they were drafted into to the mine’s athletics team, where they received training and were also taught about body physique.

They started participating in various competitions across South Africa. “I remember going to places like Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth amongst others, and doing very well,” he said.

In 1973 he entered a cross-country race in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he got position six.

He said after that race he was introduced to people from Botswana, and would then come back home from the mines whenever they were preparing to run a race somewhere.

“We had an American coach and we would train at the National Stadium” he said. 

Mosweu was part of a team that travelled to New Zealand in 1974 for the Commonwealth Games.

He did not do well, which he said was probably because he was affected by the weather, as he struggled to adapt to conditions in New Zealand. However, the journey to New Zealand only marked the beginning of many journeys that later followed as he went on representing the country abroad.

He said he scooped position four in a 9.2 kilometre road race in Luanda, Angola, in a time of 25 minutes.

He also mentioned the Pro Nutro 32 kilometre race that he ran in 1984 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

“Every time I ran in southern Africa I did very well, but that time was an exception,” he said. Mosweu said they travelled to Zimbabwe by train and did not get training before the race so his legs were stiff due to the long train ride.

Mosweu cherishes all the races he participated in, adding that he felt honoured to have had a chance to shake Queen Elizabeth’s hand during the 1986 Commonwealth Games in the United Kingdom where he competed in the 42.2 km race. Although he did not do well in that race, he rates it as one of the most memorable for him.

Narrating how the queen went around the runners greeting them and shaking their hands, he said “I still take pride in that moment realising that I got a privilege that many have never had.”

In 1998 Mosweu came back home from the mines. By then he had a wife and children.

 He was surprised to realise that there was no appreciation of him and fellow runners for having represented the country on many occasions. He was now just an ordinary person.  “I had expected the sports council to maybe engage us in coaching athletes or something of that nature because we had experience and had learnt a lot,” he said.

He said he did not let that discourage him as he later approached Hill School Primary in Lobatse and expressed his interest in coaching pupils at the school. The school engaged him and he has been with the school for four years.

He explained that he worked on a voluntary basis, adding that it gave him pleasure to see athletes that he had coached doing well.

He urged those who have talent in sports to use it, and he cites himself as an example of how they could travel the world. ENDS