Gold medal winners will take P1 million cash home, and P2, 500 monthly groceries for a year. Even during the Tokyo 2020 Games, the retail store had dangled the same incentive but it remained unclaimed as there were no gold medal winners. Choppies public relations officer, Kebonyemodisa Kebonyemodisa, said the company has pledged P1 million cash and P2, 500 worth of groceries for a year to gold medallists, while those who win silver will get P500, 000. Athletes who get bronze medals will receive P250, 000 from Choppies. “The finalists will get themselves P25, 000 each. The men’s 4x400m relay team will share the prize money if they win a medal,” he said. For his part, Choppies Botswana CEO, Ramachandran Ottapathu, said the pledge is the company's contribution towards sport in the country. “We used to do that in the past Olympics, and with the new talent that we have, we are looking forward to more medals from the team,” he said.
Meanwhile, Team Botswana's chef de mission for the Paris 2024 Olympics, Oreeditse Marakakgoro, told MmegiSport that the team arrived well at the Olympic village on Wednesday from a training camp, which was held in France's Montban. “All is going well as they have settled in the village. We are waiting for the official opening ceremony. The swimmers went for training on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning athletics team also went for a training session. Everything is in place, we are just waiting for the competition to start,” Marakakgoro said. Team Botswana will tonight, join around 10, 500 athletes that will be parading on boats through the hearts of the French capital, Paris but at the back of their minds, it is all about podium finishes. The flag bearers for Botswana are sprinter, Letsile Tebogo, and swimmer, Maxine Egner. The Olympics are being held in Western Europe for the first time since 2012 when London was the host. These are also the first Olympics with fans fully in attendance since the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. The past two games, held in Tokyo and Beijing, were conducted under a variety of pandemic restrictions.
