02 Sep 2021

Botswana sports community has praised the former president of International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge, whose integrity led to fairness in running the Olympic Games.

The 79-year old Rogge’s death on Sunday saddened the sporting fraternity around the world.

The Belgian national was the eighth IOC president from 2001 to 2013 after which he became honorary president, a position he held until his demise.

Rogge aka JR also served as a special envoy for Youth, Refugees and Sport to the United Nations after his IOC presidency.

In an interview, former BNOC CEO, Negros Kgosietsile, indicated that Rogge presided over an organisation plagued by controversies concerning the election of games hosts.
Issues included bribery, which influenced members to vote in a certain way.

 “As a result, a number of IOC members were expelled, a handful of them in Africa,” he said.

Kgosietsile said through his calm leadership, Rogge steadied the ship and transformed the way the games were bid for, evaluated and awarded.

As such, he said, IOC members were barred from receiving gifts from host cities and new evaluation and monitoring measures were put in place.

Kgosietsile said Rogge led the launching of the IOC Youth Games as a way of building up to the main games, thereby increasing frequency of the games.

“This assisted in increased and diversified revenue streams,” he added.

The introduction of Youth games, he said, enabled smaller countries to bid and host, given the limited infrastructure and facilities required.

He said increased revenue then enabled more funding to National Olympic Committees beyond support for actual games.

In case of BNOC, Kgosietsile said they were able to have a fully-fledged office and later staffed to the required level to chart the transformation of Olympic in Botswana during his tenure.

Kgosietsile said the BNOC was also able to secure funding for Botswana Long Term Athlete Development framework (BLTAD), which was eventually adopted in later years to guide Botswana sport in identifying, nurturing and preparing talent for competition.

The former BNOC head further highlighted that the benefits of BLTAD, have been seen in recent years, such as Botswana’s first silver medal in London 2012 Olympics.

“This was under his and my era, the BNOC we see today was built during Rogge’s era,” he added.

Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho, highlighted that Rogge was credited with the concept of Youth Olympic Games that led to the birth of the African Youth Games, the second edition of which Botswana hosted in 2014.

He said it was during his tenure that the BNOC grew exponentially, increasing its secretariat size and receiving a lot of money from the IOC, adding that Botswana won her first Olympic medal during the Belgian sports administrator and physician’s era. ENDS