Fencing trio acquire coaching diploma

This week marked a graduation for International Fencing Federation ( FIE) for Higher Certificate in Coaching Sciences and Diploma in Fencing for African Fencers who thronged to South Africa early this year to undertake the course.

Amongst the graduates were three local fencers, Thabile Pilane, Laone Lesejane and Camille Gombalume.

The trio commenced the 11 months course in February and completed in early November where they were doing Higher Certificate in Coaching Sciences and Diploma in all three fencing weapons of epee, foil and sabre. While in South Africa the three fencers attended the course at Exercise Teachers Academy in Johannesburg while fencing practicals were done at Tyshler Fencing Academy. The three fencers arrived in Gaborone on Tuesday where they will undergo the ten days mandatory quarantine and later on do Corona Virus tests. According to one of the participants, Thabile Pilane, though Covid- 19 affected their programme, they choose to soldier on.“We came here in early February and we just completed our studies beginning of November. The course went very well though the pandemic came and nearly disrupted everything. During the time of the pandemic we were asked if we wanted to continue or go back home but we opted to stay here and finish everything because we had already dedicated this year towards doing the course,” said Pilane.

As for the way forward for the trio since now they are fully qualified coaches, Pilane says the focus is to go all out there to recruit new people to the sport for its growth and survival.“The main purpose is to come back and be coaches and grow the sport locally. So the first step is to recruit new people who have shown interest to join us. It was very difficult to be doing a course in the middle of a pandemic.” She also said they will complete some of the courses while in Botswana.

“There is also a short course for refereeing that we are likely to take once we get to Botswana because this year we didn’t get the chance to complete our refereeing courses so we have one of them set in place,” she said. The successful graduation of the three fencers brings the total number of Masters/ coaches in Botswana to nine, four females and five males. Although fencing is relatively a small sporting code, the number is fairly low as compared to the number of players that the coaches have to service.

According to Botswana Fencing Federation( BFF) Technical Director, KaraboThobega they sent the trio to the course because they wanted to increase the number of coaches locally.“We sent them to do this course because the coaches who are already available are very few. All this time we had six coaches so when we add those three who recently graduated it’s nine. Remember fencing is only found in Gaborone so we want to introduce our sport in different parts of Botswana and we can be successful if we have many coaches.” said Thobega.