08 Dec 2021

Two shrewd Kenya athletics administrators, Martin Keino and Charlotte Kurgoy, are in Gaborone to facilitate workshops for the Gaborone International Meet (GIM) as well as inspect facilities that will be used for the April 30, 2022 event.

Speaking during a media briefing on Tuesday, Keino said Botswana was blessed with athletics talent.

He said he was of the view that the GIM would be in a good position to showcase the talent the country had as well as delivering a world class event.

Keino said in September, they invited GIM director, Glody Dube, to benchmark at the Kip Keino Classic 2021, adding that the second edition of the 2021 Kip Keino Classic World Athletics Tour-Gold, attracted top athletes amongst them Americans Justin Gatlin, Fred Kerley, Namibian Christine Mboma and Ivorian Marie Josee Ta Lou.

He said they were in Gaborone to assist GIM to meet the World Athletics Continental Tour event-bronze standards, adding that they had hosted the World Athletics Continental Tour-Gold for two years and it was successful.

He said they would be hosting another meet a week after GIM in May 2022, adding that he was therefore confident that Dube and his colleagues would send a team.

Keino, who is the son of Kenya’s athletics legend, Kipchoge Keino, said the other objective of their visit was to help drill the GIM team about the requirements, as similar events organisers in Africa.

“But we believe they have a lot of things in place in terms of facilities and the support. We have been here since Sunday assisting them in different areas,” he said.

Keino, who is  the chief executive officer of Keino Sports Management and Kurgoy, who is Athletics Kenya administration officer, are expected to share with GIM committee their findings as well as areas of improvement to host a successful World Athletics Continental Tour event-bronze.

Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), Barulaganye Mogotsi said Keino and Kurgoy were in Gaborone to facilitate workshops and inspect facilities as well as general logistics on invitations to athletes and technical officials.

He said GIM would be waiting for the duo’s final report on Thursday.

Mogotsi said the GIM was an annual international track and field competition hosted in Gaborone by Golden Door Sports Agency with technical support from Botswana National Sports Commission through the Botswana Athletics Association (BAA), while Golden Door Sports Agency manages professional athletes.

He said in 2018, they applied to be recognised by the World Athletics for 2019, as well as applying for the bronze category, but unfortunately, they were not successful, as they did not meet some requirements.

Mogotsi said in 2019, they tried their luck for 2020 and were successful.

He said they then worked on the preparations for the event, but unfortunately they were not able to host it due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We then postponed to May 2021, and continued with our preparations.

However, we could still not host the event due to COVID-19,” he said.

Mogotsi further said this year they received an enquiry from World Athletics on their position to host the event or else they reapply to host, adding “this time we are going to host the event, with or without COVID-19 challenges”.

In terms of preparations for 2022, he said they had embarked on enquiring from those countries which hosted the events during COVID-19 for lessons, adding that they visited Kenya in September, of this year.

Furthermore, he said they had already submitted proposals to different companies and had been engaging other stakeholders amongst them; Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development, Botswana National Sports Commission, Botswana National Olympic Committee, Botswana Athletics Association, Gaborone City Council and BITC.

Mogotsi further said in terms of their preparedness on the ground, they had booked the National Stadium as the venue and the UB Stadium as the warm-up venue.

“We are now working on identifying a minimum of three-star hotel as an athletes’ village.

This is a requirement from World Athletics.

 For us to finalise our agreement with potential accommodation providers, we need money.

As of now we are still resource mobilising,” he said. ENDS