02 Sep 2019

Botswana riders have been hailed for their good performance at the ongoing 12th Africa Games in Morocco.

Bakang Ebudilwe, Gontse Molefe and Abeng Malete are representing the country at the games.

Botswana is participating for the second time, having participated in 2015 for the first time.

Ebudilwe took part in the 65km two lap road race finishing in position 16 with a time of 1:45:27.

Team manager, Game Mompe, said Ebudilwe who also participated in the women’s cross country (XCO) mountain bike race put up an impressive finish on the XCO MTB, finishing sixth on a two lap 22.8km race.

In the men’s individual time trial (ITT), Malete finished in position 25 with a time of 54:20:209 and the race was won by a South African with a time of 46:50:341.

In the Men’s XCO MTB race, Mompe said Molefe finished in position 12 with a time of 2:06:14:983, 13 minutes behind the winning time of Namibia’s Tristan De Lange.

Mompe said prior to the games, the trio was trained in South Africa, adding that with frequent training camps, a lot could be achieved.

She stated that the team did well in these games compared to the last games. She said in the last games cycling had one rider, James Masimo who did both road and ITT.

For his part, Botswana Cycling Association (BCA) public relations officer, Kagiso Potongwane, said although the cycling team did not win any medal at the 12th Africa Games, the association was impressed.

Potongwane said the results were an accomplishment for BCA since it built a foundation on which future participation in the continental games could be gauged on.

He said riders were sent to the games in order to gain experience and in the process influence younger riders to aspire to participate at such levels.  ENDS