The Lima 24 championships will be held from August 27-31. The Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) has sent a team of 12 athletes, comprising six girls and the same number of boys to compete in the 200m, 400m, 4x100m relay, 4x400m relay, and mixed relay. It is at the same competition where a young Letsile Tebogo blasted across the finish line to set the 100m World Under-20 record of 9.91 seconds in Cali, Colombia in 2022. The junior team leaves today as the nation is still celebrating the success of Paris 2024, where Tebogo won the country's first ever gold medal at the Olympics while the men’s 4x400m relay team delivered a silver medal.
The junior team's coach, Nico Manyepedza, told MmegiSport that preparations for the championships have gone according to plan. He said the team is ready to compete. “You could tell even during the last training on Wednesday. I was happy on a lot of things. There was a lot of improvement in what we have been doing. The plan is to reach the finals, where anything can happen. We are going there to compete,” he said. Regarding female athletes who have been struggling during international competitions, Manyepedza said they have a good team, but they should find out why they regress as they grow. “For a long time, we have had good athletes such as Winnie Sarefo and Boitshepiso Kelapile; now we have the likes of Obakeng Kamberuka and Golekanye Chikani. All these athletes are age mates. You wonder what goes wrong when it comes to performance. I believe that women athletes need financial motivation to go for training, but for boys, it is easy,” he said.
