03 Jul 2024

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) is not happy with the way the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) has handled the results of the  4x100m men’s relay heat 2, which was won by Botswana.

During the CAA Senior Athletics Championships held in Cameroon recently, the quartet of Thapelo Monaiwa, Mothusi Boitshwarelo, Tumo van Wyk and Letsile Tebogo registered a national record of 38.18 to win their heat.

The time meant that Botswana displaced The Netherlands and was in joint 15th position with Brazil, and had the status quo remained until Sunday, the relay team would have made history and qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

However, the tables have turned, and CAA has submitted the manual timing to World Athletics, a time which is not recognised by the world athletics governing body to qualify for major events. The reason given by the CAA technical delegate, Suren Ayadassen, in one of the communication to both the CAA president and World Athletics is that, after the results were published, an in-depth research, simulation and enquiry both on site and CAA technical delegate and remotely by World Athletics, competition department, of the available video, revealed that the timing returned was inaccurate. Ayadassen said the decision was taken to keep the results on hold pending investigation, and was given the status of uncleared by World Athletics. He said trying to retrieve the backup photo finish by the service provider was unsuccessful due to a camera setup malfunction. Ayadassen further said the official manual timing by the backup time keepers for that event returned a performance of 38.7 seconds for Botswana which was coherent with the video evidence available and the timing simulation carried out by both World Athletics and the CAA.

 “Hence the decision taken by the CAA technical delegate to declare the photo finish electronic timing as obviously inaccurate in accordance with World Athletics Technical Rules 2024,TR 19.2, and to consider the timing of the backup time keepers as official. In that regard, BAA vice president Oabona Theetso said they were disappointed because all the mix up happened in the presence of the CAA president, Hamad Kalkaba.

“As the president of CAA, he should have done better to make sure that he delivers a competition that other areas of World Athletics will cherish, but for him to deliver a substandard competition, whereby he knew the competition was an Olympic qualifier and timing becomes a problem is disappointing to say the least,” he said. Theetso said Kalkaba was aware that timing played a crucial role in athletics, and it was something that could not be taken for granted. “So in a nutshell, Kalkaba has failed us as Botswana. He has failed Africa and the world because he has denied Africa an opportunity to have more representatives at the Olympics,” he said. Contacted for comment, Kalkaba said he was aware of Botswana’s appeal but had been watching the competition just like everyone. ENDS.