BVF FOCUSES ON TRAINING
Botswana Volleyball Federation (BVF) leadership are pressing hard to ensure that the development of the game does not suffer stagnation post COVID-19.
This was revealed by the association’s Vice President, Ndibo Lebala during a sideline interview after the draw of the upcoming ladies tournament.
The tournament was necessitated by the fact that, ladies participation and growth on the game appear to have suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to officials.
Lebala shared that there is a need for the association to cover all aspects of development to enhance success prospects and advancement of the local game, mentioning leadership, athlete development and competitions as some of key items to drive their volleyball development mandate.
At least three (3) experts in the technical department of the game are expected in the country in the next four (4) months, who will offer different insights on various aspects of volleyball.
“We are expecting three high level coaching experts in the coming months. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) coach is already in the country. Japan does not have tall players but their defensive game is really good, and they have improved significantly in recent times. We felt that since we’ve learned the art of blocking and attacking from countries like Cuba, we needed to improve our movements in defense and that is why we brought him here,” he explained.
JICA is an implementing agency of Japanese official development aid (ODA) for the purpose of supporting the socio-economic development, recovery or economic stability of developing regions.
“We are also expecting another expert in January, Jan Ebbing from Netherlands, and he will be here for three months, he’s a top coach. He currently is running the high performance of Dutch volleyball and our expectations are that, by the time he completes his mission here, our coaches should have learned a lot from him,” he added.
The BVF Vice President highlighted that, BVF previously imported technical experts from Brazil and the response of the local coaches to the exercise were positive and they have since asked for a similar drill to be conducted.
Beach Volleyball has been on the rise with the recent impressive showing by Botswana duo of, George Chiswaniso and Sekao Jack at the Zone IV Beach Volleyball finals held in Maseru, Lesotho.
The local stars defeated African powerhouses, including Mozambique who won the tournament on two previous occasions and their impressive showing was rewarded with a World Cup slot next year.
“We are in the process of recruiting another experts, still through the support of International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), by taking care of all expenses. He will be here for a year and will be focusing on Beach Volleyball. We are new to Beach Volleyball but we are already registering good results, so we need expertise in this game to solidify our performances and development programs and maybe we can even qualify for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics,” Lebala shared.
Botswana men’s team finished 4th during the African Nations cup recently and has also qualified for the World Championships in Mexico next year, they have a hectic schedule ahead as they look to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics, African Beach Games and compete at the World Beach games.
Lebala further implored with the powers that be for the return of school sports, citing that without school sport, it will be a serious challenge for BVF to produce junior teams in the near future.
The BVF Vice President also reiterated the importance of partnerships and sponsorship to help the association achieve their goals. The ladies upcoming tournament sponsors however have been secured and details will be revealed tomorrow at Hilton Garden hotel in Gaborone.