20 Feb 2020

The annual Gaborone International Meet will be staged on May 2 at the National Stadium.

Addressing a press brief on February 18, Gaborone International Meet local organising committee chairperson, Kitso Kemoeng said the event continued to be a platform for athletes to qualify for or prepare for any major Games beckoning.

“In this case, the event sets to qualify or prepare athletes for the forthcoming Tokyo Olympics and beyond,” he said.
He said invitations had been sent out to countries within Africa, with indications that their traditional friends such as  Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho and South Africa were raring to go.

“We have also heard from Cameroon, who are even keen to arrive earlier as they find the event high standard enough to catapult them to better things in the track and field event,” he said.

Kemoeng said they would be relying on international athletes to maintain the competition standards.

He said the event remained sanctioned and to some extent supported by the BAA, who provided World Athletics certified implements and technical officials.

“Some of you may have seen the World Athletics’ schedule of events for this year, which does not enlist any of the Botswana Athletics activities.

We have indeed noted that omission and drew the attention of the BAA and World Athletics to it,” he said.

Kemoeng, however, said they had been advised by the world body that there was nothing they could do as the deadline of submission had already elapsed without anything received from the BAA, through whom all Botswana athletics matters have to be addressed.

“A cursory look at the World Athletics calendar reveals that none of the Botswana athletics competitions appears in the calendar, possibly pointing to a breakdown between BAA and the international athletics organisations with respect to the inclusion of Botswana athletics activities in the World Athletics calendar,” he said

Despite the omission, he said GIM2020 remained a fully recognised event by both World Athletics and the Confederation of Athletics in Africa (CAA) through the BAA; meaning that any record broken at our event shall be duly recognised. ENDS