25 Aug 2022

The Botswana Cycling Association (BCA) National Mountain Bike (MTB) Cross Country (XCO) championships is billed for Kgale on Sunday.

The championship returns to Domus Maria route with slight changes to the course.

BCA last used this route in 2014 during the second African Youth Games in Gaborone.

The route will be in a loop format of 5.69km distance and it covers sandy jeep tracks of a section of the Kgale Hill, popularly known to riders as the saddle track.

This year, the riders will experience new technical course in the form of rocky sections on ascend, while the descend will remain the same at Batman returns.

“Based on experience from training camps in South Africa and Namibia as well as other international race events, we have decided to make the route technically challenging to expose our athletes to similar courses they experience at such events in order to improve their performance and technical skills,” said BCA president, Kagiso Potongwane, in an interview.  

He also noted that the route would also test, in particular, the youth in terms of their technical skills and abilities.

Potongwane further said they intended to use courses that had more challenging terrain and introduce obstacles as well ‘to increase the technical ability of our youth, particularly for development purposes.’

He added that the association would also ensure that affiliate clubs also followed suit.

The race will be based on age in the various categories of Masters who are 50 and above, vets category include age group of 36-49, Elite category are age 23-35, the Under23 category is from age 19-22, whilst Junior category covers 17-18 year olds and Youth category is under 16s.

The different categories will do different race distance loops.

Youth boys and girls will do three laps, which is close to 17km, junior boys and girls, female Under 23, elite females, vets female and masters female will all do four laps, which is approximately 22km.

The Elite, Under23, Vets and Masters men will cover a 34km distance race as they will do six laps.

Some of the expected athletes fighting for the championships include Mark van Zyl in the men’s Elite category, battling with Gontse Lethokwe, who will be defending his title. Due to limited financial resources, Potongwane said they were unable to award jerseys as part of the prize giving competition, but medals will be awarded.

“However, National jerseys are awarded for representing Botswana Cycling on international events and those crowned National champions stand a better chance at national team selection and a chance to wear the blue, black white national colours,” said Potongwane.

Registration for the BCA National MTB XCO Championships is ongoing at www.timing.lifecycle.co.bw at a cost of P250 for all race distances. ENDS