Molwantwa Modukanele fiercest
28 May 2023
George Molwantwa and Lethabo Modukanele have been crowned best of the best boxers at the 11th annual Debswana Botswana Boxing Association (BoBA) awards ceremony Saturday night.
Modukanele, the hard hitting UB Boxing Club pugilist, won big after being declared the best female boxer of the year and walked away with P12 000.
Her sensational’s run inside the ring saw her also being crowned sportswoman of the year at the inaugural Botswana Women Sports awards recently.
She made history by becoming the first Motswana woman boxer to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in the 45-48kg division last year.
Molwantwa also punched his way to success after a bumper performance in the past year.
The national champion emerged as part of the top 10 boxers in Birmingham after faltering in the quarterfinals.
He was crowned the best male boxer on Saturday, beating exciting boxers Kobamelo Molatlhegi and Enerst Kegolotswe.
Inspiring nominees earlier, Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare applauded the warm partnership between Debswana and BoBA.
Rakgare said the boxing administrators deserved a pat on the back for maintaining a lucrative sponsorship for so many years.
“Debswana’s commitment to development of sport is unwavering and worth celebrating,” he said.
Again, he said talent identification and development through school sport was in the pipeline as his ministry was in conversation with Ministry of Education and Skills Development to resuscitate schools
sport.
For his part, Debswana corporate affairs manager for socio-economic development, Louis Baseki said investment in sport was vital.
“Debswana is looking at building and improving local athletes and partnerships such as the one with boxing are crucial in advancing such efforts.
We have set a milestone of sending a considerable number of athletes to the Paris Olympics,” Baseki said.
He added that as the sponsorship increased in value, much was expected in the quality of the sport, both administratively and inside the ring.
“Debswana has established partnership steering committees, which identifies partners to assist and ensure prudent use of resources,” he said.
Meanwhile, in other awards for the night, Linda Tone walked away with referee of the year while Gaolefufa Othamile was crowned the best judge.
Thebe Setlalekgosi of DTCB club was awarded the best coach, Chabongwa Pilane of the University of Botswana received the best administrator award while Francistown Boxing Club was awarded the best affiliate. Ends
Source : BOPA
Author : Baleseng Batlotleng
Location : GABORONE
Event : (BoBA) awards
Date : 28 May 2023