Athletics restricted to Gaborone
…BAA, BNSC differ over event cancellation
It appears the association went broke before the end of the financial year when there were no high profile events to attend last year. “Sports funds have been deferred to assist in fighting COVID-19 therefore our grants from government were no exception. The grant which we get from World Athletics has long been depleted as a result due to meetings and other administration issues,” explains Theetso.
There was a ray of hope for qualification since most athletes were starting to clock average to good times, close to the Olympic qualifying standards.
With international travel halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this local track and field event was used by athletes in their quest to qualify for Tokyo Olympics since qualifiers across the borders have become inaccessible.
Botswana Athletics Association’s (BAA)and Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) have opposing reasons behind the cancelation of the track and field event that was earmarked for Francistown.
BAA cites financial challenges while BNSC points to financial prudence.
Following the cancellation of the event, Sun Sport caught up with BAA Vice president Administration, Oabona Theetso to seek clarity on the matter. “Competitions will go on depending on the availability of funds. We are still engaging with our financiers so that they are able to assist. The time frame of receiving help will depend on agreement between us and other stakeholders. BNSC said they will assist but we don’t know how as we have just cancelled one of our races,” he said when quizzed if there will be no competitions until end of March.
However, according to BNSC acting Chief Executive Officer, Tuelo Serufho, they offered to help BAA but the situation has nothing to do with money. “We offered that BAA should host their track and field events in Gaborone because already athletes who stand a chance to qualify for Tokyo are here in camp and also many officials are in Gaborone. So taking the event to Francistown where there are few athletes is not a viable decision at all in this Covid-19 times. We can help sponsor Francistown events only if BAA have some valid compelling reasons of taking the events to the north, so as of now we can only assist if they stick their events to Gaborone, so it was never an issue of money,” he said.