12 Jan 2020

Botswana’s continental rivals in women volleyball team have thwarted the country’s efforts to participate in the 2020 summer Olympics billed for Tokyo.

Botswana volleyball team’s dream to be a part of the global championships came to a dead end at the just ended competitions in Cameroon.

The team’s assistant coach, Shadrack Modiakgotla, said they went there hopeful but were not prepared enough. 

“Technically, we are not that much below par, but we need to have adequate preparations as one month cannot be enough given that the team can stay up to a year without having competitions in the country,” he said.

Consequently, he said, this made the players to be inactive and took time to adapt to training both tactical, mental and physical when called for a short time camp.

 “Basically, our readiness to compete is not orchestrated from home by all stakeholders in the country as there is not really a sound programme for preparing our teams not only in volleyball,” he said.

He further said development had to be prioritised so that they also had enough pool of players and all the necessary personnel from a doctor, physical therapists to psychologist to choose from.

Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF) sports development officer, Peaceful Seleka, said the team had started preparations with a camp in December.

He said the team moved to Kigali in Rwanda on December 19 where they played few friendly games and continued with training until they left for Yaounde on January 2.

Though 16 players travelled to Rwanda, only 12 proceeded to Cameroon.

“Getting to Rwanda, the team started its first game of the competition with a three-nil defeat suffered in the hands of Cameroon and suffered another three-nil defeat in the hands of Kenya on Monday,” Mr Seleka said.

Having been defeated by Cameroon and Egypt, Nigeria came back with a bang in a four set thriller against Botswana winning 3-1.

Seleka also said that looking at all the results from the first game, the team has no chance of qualifying for Tokyo 2020.

“Despite the team’s failure to register a win, or better still qualify for Tokyo 2020, the ladies learnt a lot from their opponents, from physical to mental strength,” he said.

The team came back home on Saturday.  ENDS