03 Oct 2024

World Athletics has given Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) the rights to host a new meet, Botswana Continental Tour Gold.

According to the World Athletics calendar, the meet will be staged on April 12, 2025 at the National Stadium.

The events to be staged in the men’s category are 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 400m Hurdles and 1500m, Long Jump, Javelin Throw as well as 4x100m relay.

The women categories will be made up of 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m Long Jump and 1500m, Triple Jump as well as 4x100m relay.

BAA vice president, Oabona Theetso expressed satisfaction that the World Athletics had found it fit to give them the rights to host ‘a very high profile meet,’ which was a Category A event.

  “I want to emphasise that this is a new meet that BAA will be hosting. This shows that World Athletics has confidence in us, and we are not going to disappoint them,” he said.

He said they had been hosting successful BAA series and National Championships, therefore they found it advisable to challenge themselves, given that they had submitted the bid to host the World Relays.

 Theetso said their intention would be to deliver a memorable event, with a local organising committee made up of different stakeholders.

 He said he was aware that Africa was only allocated two slots as the other meet was the annual Kip Keino hosted by Kenya.

 In that regard, Theetso said it was high time Africa showed the world that it could equally deliver events of high stature.

 He said Africa had a lot of talent and Botswana Continental Tour Gold would parade some of the continent’s finest. Ends