30 May 2019

With less than 500 days to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) president, Botsang Tshenyego says the athletes’ performance will serve as an indictator of what to expect next year.

Speaking at the organisation’s ordinary general assembly on Tuesday, Tshenyego said they had nine athletes on Olympic Solidarity scholarships covering three athletics, swimming and karate in preparation for the olympics.

Also, he said they were  supporting other athletes under the continental support grant.

“You may be aware that we had a cyclist who was recipient of a Tokyo 2020 scholarship.

However due to low accumulation of points by Botswana, the grant has been withdrawn as it was linked to qualification to Tokyo 2020.

In addition, we have two female teams on Olympic Solidarity grants, being softball and volleyball,” he said.

He further said Botswana would also be represented at the World Beach Games to be held in October.

Tshenyego also highlighted that at the Olympic movement they demand a sports system that puts athletes first.

He said it was of paramount importance that athletes advocate for their rights.

And he urged them to acknowledge their obligations.

“We wish to strengthen advocacy for athletes welfare and this is the reason we pioneered inclusion of an athlete representative in the board,” he said.

Another issue that national federations needed to pay attention to, he said was athlete safe guarding.

“There may be no evidence of abuse and athlete safety breaches at the moment, but we are better off being proactive. The secretariat is available to share some materials on safeguarding of athletes for you to adapt to your own circumstances,” he said.

On governance improvement, Tshenyego said BNOC through their Governance, Risk, Legal and Ethics committee (GRLE, they had continued to improve their governance in line with principles of good sport governance.

This, he said was also in consonance with Recommendation 30 of the IOC’s Agenda 2020, which seeks to strengthen independence of the Ethics Commission.

In their quadrennial annual general assembly, he said delegates had identified some need for improvement in the constitution adding that some substantial amount of work had been done to that respect.He said best standards demand that board performance be evaluated at least once annually

Currently, he said the Board Performance Evaluation had commenced as a way of assuring themselves and stakeholders of their commitment to conformity and continued improvement. ENDS