Team departs for Region V games
LOBAMBA - The Minister of Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Harries ‘Madze’ Bulunga bade farewell to Team Eswatini in an event held at Lobamba Technical Centre yesterday.
The team led by Athletics Eswatini (AE) Public Relations Officer Victor ‘Mavikane’ Dlamini will be leaving the country this morning by road through Mozambique en route to the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region V games to be staged in Lilongwe, Malawi.
The minister when addressing the team urged them to bring home many medals and make the country proud. “To the team, I want you to know that you are going to Malawi as Eswatini ambassadors. Therefore, make sure that you uphold respect at all times. Give it your best effort.
GOLD
“Enjoy, network and bring back the gold medals. I am confident that you will add more medals to the 19 that our athletes have brought home from various international competitions this year alone, ranging from the CANA Zone IV Swimming Championships, the AFBC Zone IV Elite Championships, African Senior Taekwondo Championships and recently the 44th Chess Olympiad,” Bulunga
said.
The Eswatini Sports and Recreation Council (ESRC) and the Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (EOCGA) contributed E750 000 to send the athletes from three sporting disciplines, athletics, swimming and taekwondo to the biannual games.
The games starts on December 2 to 11, 2022 and Malawi will host this year’s edition for the first in the history of the tournament, which will be the 10th edition. The local team will be represented by 11 athletes and five officials.
TAEKWONDO
Taekwondo is expected to start its programme on November 30 before the opening ceremony; hence the team has left three days before the games begin.
Eswatini was the lowest performing country in the 9th edition of the Region V Youth Games which was staged in Lesotho, Maseru last year. The kingdom’s athletes accumulated a total of 10 medals, including four gold medals, two silvers and four bronze medals, as they were placed on position nine overall.
Team Eswatini had an 80-member delegation made up of 65 athletes from five different sporting codes namely judo, swimming, boxing, athletics and football.