08 Aug 2022

National athletics team coach has called for the return of school sport following the dismal performance of his team at the just ended Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

The team only managed one silver medal in the 4x400 men’s relay team.

Justice Dipeba said in an interview that school sport could take the country back to its glory days.

“School sport is important because it is a feeder to the national team. So, what we currently have now is the same athletes who have been in the national team. We got them through the school system,” he said.

Dipeba said school sport had overtime helped them to identify talent, adding majority of athletes were found in schools.

Given mass participation in school sports, it had always been easy to pick athletes who could fill the gaps left by the senior athletes.

“If we are not able to see the upcoming athletes running at their respective schools and Botswana Games, it will be a big loss for us,” he said.

Dipeba said they did not have any structure that could go around the country to identify and groom talent. 

“As it is, when we lose the current crop of athletes, there is going to be a gap and that alone shows that school sport is very important,” he said.

In other issues, Dipeba said preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympics could have long started and coaches would have been targeting some athletes who would be ready in two years.

“Next year, we have World Championships. We should be using them as a preparation for the Olympics and we could be beefing up the team that we have now. So they would go to the Olympics a much stronger team,” he said.

Dipeba said there should be a plan that outlined what would be happening in the next two years, as well as coming up with robust strategies of what to be done to win medals at the Olympics.  ENDS