15 Feb 2024

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) will on Saturday select a final team that will represent Botswana at the African Games scheduled for Accra, Ghana on March 8-24.

The final selection will be done during a meet slated for the National Stadium on Saturday, where only top 16 ranked athletes as of January, will particiapte.

BAA vice president Oabona Theetso said though they were expected to send only 18 athletes to the Games, 23 athletes had so far qualified hence they would use the Saturday’s meet to select a robust team.

“Athletes are selected based on their times in athletics, so our job is very simple, clock a good time, and automatically qualify to go to Accra,” he said.

He said the meet would also be used as qualifiers for other events such as National Championships, Africa Senior Championships, World U20 championships and the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Theetso said athletes would compete in different events such as 100m, 100m hurdles, 200m, 400m, 400m hurdles, 800m metre,1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 4x100m relay, 4x400m relay.

He expressed concern concerning field events, as athletes were yet to qualify for the continental games, hence athletes would battle it out in the triple jump, long jump, high jump, short-put, discus and javelin on Saturday.

“We just pray that on Saturday a lot of athletes more especially in the field events will make a cut,” he said.

Botswana sent 103 athletes in the last African Games held in Morocco, Rabat, but managed to salvage 13 medals. ENDS