28 Jan 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has denied weightlifter, Magdeline Moyengwa, an opportunity to train outside the country.

However, her desire to qualify for the Olympics is still on course. 

Moyengwa said in an interview that she recently reported for camp to prepare for the qualifiers.

“The aim is to achieve my target of qualifying for the Olympics. My last competition was All Africa Games and I think I did very well because I clocked my personal bests there,” she said.

Furthermore, Moyengwa said she would have loved to train outside the country considering that there was shortage of equipment that could adequately assist her locally.

For instance, she said Pretoria High-Performance Centre was one of the best.

“But all is not lost. We will try to improvise with the little we have here because at the end of the day, I have to prepare myself,” Moyengwa said.

Her coach, Alex Rankgwe, said the athlete was doing well in training. 

He said they had planned to train with one of South African weightlifters, but the athlete was now training in New Zealand.

Furthermore, the coach said they would be competing at the African Championships penciled for April in Antananarivo.

He said come May, Moyengwa would compete in the IWF Junior World Championships in Saudi Arabia.  

After the two competitions, Rankgwe said they would know whether Moyengwa qualified for the Olympics or they would qualify by a wild card.

“We are not necessarily looking for a wild card. We want straight qualification.”  He, however, said they were faced with tough completion in Africa.

“Two girls from South Africa and Nigeria are giving us stern competition but we are trying hard to get there,” said Rankgwe.

Meanwhile in her first competition in Uganda, where she competed in both the youth and junior categories, Moyengwa won two silver medals and one bronze in the youth category and won one silver and two bronze in the junior category.

Moyengwa was the first weightlifter in Botswana to qualify for the 2019 World Championships where she got position six out of 11 athletes. 

In the last Africa Junior Championships she won a gold medal. Ends