20 Mar 2024

In an effort to cultivate track and field athletes from a young age, African Stars International Championships has organised a week-long athletics competition in Gaborone.

The meet is billed for the National Stadium from March 25-30.

Briefing the media about the event on Tuesday, coordinator and chairperson of the event, Harvinder Dhaliwal said the idea of organising the event was prompted by the need to engage the children in sport at a young age.

He said it was imperative to close the identified gap in order to produce well rounded athletes.

Dhaliwal said lack of grassroots development in sport was a challenge calling for various stakeholders to initiate programmes aimed at empowering the community.

The event coordinator said it was important to observe that over the years the country had proved to have potential in athletics, therefore it was important to encourage the youth to venture into sporting activities more especially athletics.

“The event will be aimed at luring children into sports from grassroots level. The programme will go a long way in developing a culture of sports from a young age,” said Dhaliwal.

He said the programme would target students from primary and secondary schools in Gaborone and its periphery.

He said after consulting relevant stakeholders such as schools, both government and private, Botswana Athletics Association (BAA), Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC), the track and field event has been viewed as a positive development in the growth of sports.

Dhaliwal said the sporting event will cater for children under 19 years.

“The intention is to build well rounded athletes in track and field. We need to increase the number of athletes winning the country medals in track and field events,” he said.

He said it was important to come up with programmes that would develop children in sport.

The event chairpesrson said the organising committee with the support of the schools that will partake in the event will ensure that the children were taken care off during the six-day track and field event.

He said the athletes will compete in among others athletics (long and short distances), javelin and discus throw, long, triple and high jump and javelin.

Dhaliwal has encouraged all the schools that will participate to state the discipline in which their athletes will partake in to enable timely finalisation of the programme.

Meanwhile, Marulamantsi Primary School board chairperson, one of the schools that had confirmed their participation in the track and field event, Kitso Dlamini said the school had a programme of developing a sport academy.

Dlamini said the track and field even would go a long way in encouraging their programme as it gave their athletes and opportunity to gauge themselves as they would be competing with other schools.

He said the schools was equally committed to nurturing and developing sports excellence from a young age. Ends