11 Oct 2019

Over 50 athletes will on Saturday converge at the University of Botswana (UB) for the annual Thobega Fencing Open competition.

Botswana’s first fencing master, Karabo Thobega, who is the director at Thobega Fencing Academy, said the tournament would feature both individual and team events for both males and females.

Thobega explained in an interview that the team events would be a first for the Botswana fencing scene as previously competitions featured only individual events.

Further, he said while athletes would ordinarily compete in four categories, only three categories often feature in local tournaments, those being the Benjamins, and the junior and senior categories.

The Benjamins, he said comprise athletes aged seven to 13, whereas age restrictions for the junior and senior categories are 17 to 20 and 21 to 45 years, respectively.

He said in the upcoming tournament there would be no competitions under the cadets category due to the low number of athletes within that particular age bracket of 14 to 17 years.

At the moment, only three athletes fall within the cadets category, he said, and explained that provision had been made for the three to compete in the junior category.

While expressing disappointment that the Namibia and Soweto Fencing Clubs would not be able to honour the invitation due to lack of funds, he said the tournament was still expected to be a success as a good number of local clubs would be represented.

He said having the two clubs from Namibia and South Africa as had been the case in the inaugural tournament last year, would give local athletes the much-needed opportunity to gauge themselves against their foreign counterparts, and thus add on to efforts to grow the sport as well as raise the calibre of athletes.He said in addition to athletes from Thobega Fencing Academy, the tournament would feature athletes from several fencing clubs among them UB, Tlokweng, Westwood, Thornhill, and Legae Primary School.

Thobega added that Serowe Fencing Club would not make it to the tournament due to lack of funds.

Ookeditse Molato, an instructor at the Serowe-based club cited lack of funds, unavailability of athletes to take part in the competition and shortage of protective gear among the challenges standing in the way of the club’s dream to compete in the tournament.

Molato said the club’s members comprise mostly primary school pupils who, due to school commitments, would not be available for the tournament.

He observed that given the amount of exposure that the athletes would get from the competition, the club was presently engaging with the school-going members’ parents to explore the possibility of bringing them to watch athletes from other clubs compete.

Botswana Amateur Fencing Society (BAFS) public relations officer, Ewetse Khama hailed the upcoming tournament as a good initiative that would help create opportunities for athletes to develop into high performing sportsmen and women.

Khama indicated that the society rendered support to fencing clubs whenever they came up with such initiatives that had the potential to grow the sport locally.

“For tournaments such as the Thobega Fencing Open competition, BAFS gives support in terms of scoring equipment, and sometimes, weapons and competition level attire if necessary,” he explained.

As for whether local clubs are doing enough to grow the sport, Khama said while more still needs to be done, clubs were generally giving their best to help athletes to improve their skills and experience.

He disclosed that what both BAFS and clubs want was to have athletes competing successfully at both regional and international levels. ENDS