01 May 2024

 Three Botswana relay teams left the country to compete at the sixth edition of the World Athletics Relays in Nassau, The Bahamas, which takes place from May 4 to 5. 

While Team Botswana will no doubt be aiming to better their record at the competition, having previously won a silver medal at one of the editions and a bronze at another, for this year, there will be an even bigger prize. 

That prize is cementing their place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 

While there are incentives for good performances at the World Athletics Relays, those are nowhere near those of the Olympic Games. 

Qualifying for the Olympic Games will entitle each member of the relay teams to a qualification bonus of P20 000 each as well as a monthly stipend of P8 333 until August.  

The daily allowance for international competitions will then increase from P400 (US$30) to around P800 (US$60). Most significantly, winning a medal will entitle each member of a winning relay team to a house. 

A gold earns one a high cost house, medium cost house for a silver medal  while bronze entitles one to a low cost house, all generally in the areas of the athletes’ choice. 

Six of the athletes that have travelled to Nassau have already qualified for individual events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 

They are Letsile Tebogo of 100m and 200m, Bayapo Ndori, Leungo Scotch and Collen Kebinatshipi of 400m, Tshepiso Masalela and Ketlhobogile Hanguira will represent the country in 800m. 

If they qualify in the relays, then it means they may end up competing and some of them possibly winning medals in more than one event.

Contacted for comment on what would happen in case an athlete has more than one medal, the Botswana National Sports Commission, chief executive officer Tuelo Serufho said each medal earned the holder a house. 

“If any of our athletes will come back from Paris with three medals, then that’s three houses for them, adding that the type and standard of the house is determined by the colour of the medal, he said. 

Asked what they are doing to prepare for the possibility of handing over more houses than after the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Serufho said the Olympic budget for this year was alive to that and that unlike with Tokyo, the plan this time round was to have procured the houses in advance such that they were handed over as soon as the Olympic Games had ended. 

Meanwhile, from The Bahamas event, it will be interesting to see if the men’s 4x400m team will qualify for the Olympics with Letsile Tebogo as a member. 

Should that feat be attained, he will have qualified for a total of four events at the Olympic Games; a record for Botswana. What will of course be interesting is how many of those events he will end up competing in at the Olympic Games, and how many houses he will win. ENDS