05 Aug 2021

Botswana 4x400m relay team start their competition at the ongoing Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games today (Friday August 6) at 1:25pm.

The Botswana team made up of Isaac Makwala, Baboloki Thebe, Leungo Scotch, Zibani Ngozi, Anthony Pesela and Bayapo Ndori will line up with World Relays champions, The Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, Great Britain, Czech Republic, USA and Germany.

The qualifications rules are that the first three in each heat and the next two fastest, advance to the final.

The national team coach, Justice Dipeba said in an interview that tough as the lineup might look, they were confident of making it to the finals. He said the athletes were ready to compete, adding that they would rest Makwala given that he had competed in the 400m final yesterday and use him during the final tomorrow. 

Track and field analyst, Aobakwe Showa concurred that Botswana was in a tricky start list and had one of the slowest Season Best time of 3:04.03, recorded way back in May.

“However I’m very positive we will secure an automatic spot qualification. The guys will split times well, looking at the fact that all of them have clocked sub 46 times on individual events.

Pesela and Ngozi have personal bests of 45.13 and 45.15 and they can easily split sub 45 times in relays,” he said, adding that baton exchange would also be critical since any slight delays may haunt them. Showa said the USA would probably rest some of their best athletes such as Michael Norman and Michael Cherry for the final, making this heat very open.

He said The Netherlands also did not have much fresh legs since they had been involved in mixed relays and one of their fast runners Liemarvin Bonevacia, would have less than 24hrs of rest coming from 400m final.  

He said despite possessing good times, the likes of Italy and Germany were countries that Botswana had faced and beaten at World Relays this year and he does not see them posing much of a threat.

Showa said Trinidad and Tobago were yet to race as a team this season, but they had great individual athletes and ‘have always delivered on big stages so we should be wary of them as well”. Ends