12 Nov 2024

Botswana Chess Federation (BCF)’s public relations director, Goitsemodimo Makgatle has said budgetary limits forced the federation to travel with a handful of players, leaving behind quite a number of players, especially the boys.

Botswana chess team returned home on November 11 after competing in the just ended 2024 World Youth Chess Championship (WYCC) held in Florianopolis, Brazil.

A total of 62 countries from across the globe showcased in this under 18s’ only contest, among them Botswana, Angola, Kenya and South Africa who represented the African continent. 

Team Botswana, under the mentorship of Pudungwane Lesole, online coach, consisted of a trio of girls; Laone Moshoboro, Arona Moshoboro and Maya Otimile.

Makgatle said despite the federation’s efforts to source funds, potential sponsors’ wallets remained zipped up, a phenomenon, she suspected to be due to economic suppression caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

She however applauded some players’ parents for meeting the federation halfway financially   to assist in taking players to the games.

The lassies, currently ranked number one in African Chess rankings in the girls’ category, lost all the 11 rounds yet they have made impressive improvements in their ratings and rankings in most of the rounds.

Makgatle said the competitions were as tough as the Chess Olympiad for they embraced an array of international masters who some of them ranked number one in the categories.

She said BCF had set targets prior to the championships but the magnitude of the competition proved to be too high.

“Based on the team’s previous experience we had anticipated to get improved ratings, chess titles and medals too. Our girls are capable and therefore, we set the targets high for them to put in a lot of hard work into these games,” said Makgatle.

 From the technical side of the game, coach Lesole said he had jotted down some ups and downs from the team’s performance during the games that he concluded to be a lesson learnt and to be passed in the future competitions.

He said the few games that the girls managed to win were convincing in the sense that they were able to match their opponents in all the phases of the game.

This is something he said was important as it showed that whatever they were doing locally was actually relevant even at the global stage. Ends