05 Feb 2025

After putting both Africa and Botswana on the map at the last Olympics, celebrations are now over and its back to the grind as Team Botswana prepares yet for another another gruelling season.

Botswana athletes will compete at the World Athletics Relays scheduled for Guangzhou from May 10-11 where the 4x400 men’s team will defend their tittle. From there, focus will shift to the World Athletics Championships to be held in Tokyo from September 13-21. However, individual athletes will compete in the Diamond League and Continental Tours to hone their technique.

Botswana athletics coach, Kebonyemodisa “Dose” Mosimanyane said preparations in his stable were progressing very well. He said they started preparing for the 2025 season in December, adding that athletes who did not compete/feature at the Olympics and Diamond League finals started preparations before December.

Mosimanyane said Bayapo Ndori, Leungo Scotch and Letsile Tebogo are the ones who started in December. He however said it was still early for them, as they were still assessing their progress, but was quick to say that so far, everything was going well, in terms of response to programme.

“Their bodies are responding very well, but currently we want to draw a plan as to how many Diamond Leagues to attend, because Diamond League finals comes before the World Championships,” he said.

The coach said their proper peak would be for the World Championships, adding that with the Diamond League finals happening a month before the World Championships, it might be tricky to say do they go for it to win it or what.

“We might peak and fail to drop and peak again, so we have to calculate properly so that we can do well at both, or take the Diamond League final peak and carry it to the World Championships, and that is to be discussed after analysing performance of our first competitions” he said.

Mosimanyane said first they were going to compete on home soil in Francistown, then go to South Africa before going to Australia on March 16 for a two weeks training camp and compete on March 29.

“After March 29 we are coming back home to prepare for the Diamond Leagues and World Championships, but currently everyone is okay. It was a struggle to motivate them from the start, but it is always like this, more especially when we start our preparations, but it is normal for athletes especially when they achieved in the previous season” he said. ENDS