Patlakwe enters final
on BoBA interclub tournaments. Soon after taking power, Patlakwe’s administration increased the number of bouts held in interclub tournament. As the number of bouts on a single weekend almost doubled, many of Patlakwe’s detractors were quick to accuse him of compromising quality and making it hard to discover rough diamonds across the country.
While Patlakwe’s administration saw an opportunity to discover even more boxing talent in the country, his critics said the quality of the sport was being diluted as elite athletes like Mmusi Tswiige of Prisons Boxing club were regularly competing in the same interclub with Botswana Integrated Sports Association ( BISA) athletes. With the number of interclubs bouts increased sometimes the BoBA events went on well into the night. What came out of the interclubs was the discovery of young boxers but this eventually sacrificed the performance of Botswana at the international stage.
After Oteng Oteng's appearance at the 2012 London Olympics the trajectory of Botswana boxing went down drastically at the international stage. The next Olympic Games saw team Botswana failing to qualify a single boxer for the games, which came as a huge disappointment to the local boxing community. BoBA continued to face difficulties in qualifying for major competitions including the AIBA championships which saw only Mohamed Rajab competing at the last edition.
Fast forward to 2020 and the lacklustre performance continued as a competent team of around nine boxers faired dismally at the African Olympic qualifiers held in Dakar, Senegal. It was only talented female boxer, Keamogetse Kenosi ( 57kg) who managed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Nevertheless, Botswana will have more opportunities to qualify boxers for the now 2021scheduled Olympics but this is likely to be through difficult competitions. Some of Dr. Patlakwe’s achievements at the helm of BoBA include the resuscitation of some BoBA affiliates in far flung parts of the country, including Orapa and Maun. Being a medical practitioner, Patlakwe put some of his focus in the medical aspect to the contact sport.