Gov’t canvasses to support athletes
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday September 26, 2025 08:38
The team scooped a 400m gold medal through Busang Collen Kebinatshipi, a 4x400m relay team gold, and a bronze medal in the 400m from Bayapo Ndori.
Addressing the media this week, Minister of Sport and Arts, Jacob Kelebeng called on the public, private sector and all well-wishers to pledge their support for the heroes.
He said the pledges, in the form of donations, sponsorships, and other kinds of support, will go a long way in recognising the athletes' hard work and ensuring their continued development and welfare.
“This collective contribution is vital if we are to sustain the momentum of success we have achieved on the world stage. I want to assure everyone that all pledges will be handled with the utmost transparency and accountability through official government and ministry channels.
“There will be public engagements that will start in Gaborone tomorrow (Thursday), to give every Motswana the opportunity to meet, celebrate, and interact with our athletes,” Kelebeng said.
The minister added that following the historic performance at the Championships, the government had rewarded the team with P1,559,000 as per the incentives and rewards policy.
He explained that the World Athletics Championships are in the level two incentives category, where a gold medal is rewarded with P150,000, P100,000 for winning a silver medal, whilst P75,000 is paid for bronze. A top-eight finish earns an athlete P20,000.
“This is over and above the preparations of the team, which included pre-competition camp in South Korea to assist the athletes acclimatise, appearance fees and facilitation of qualification to the World Athletics Championships through build-up competitions like the 2026 World Relays. We have started the review and refined the incentives policy to ensure it is aligned with our national priorities,” he added.
Kelebeng said the review process is currently at the consultation stage, spearheaded by the Department of Sport.
“We should come up with a solution for what it means by incentives policy, maybe it does not mean running around for funds because athletes have won. Maybe it means having a fund that will assist with preparations, and what happens after competitions, hence we are reviewing this policy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) CEO, Mabua Mabua, said they have decided to change the schedule of the public engagements because the athletes are fatigued.
He said they cancelled some Gaborone engagements that were scheduled yesterday. He said the team was due to meet President Duma Boko, followed by a public engagement at the Airport Junction mall, Riverwalk Mall and Main Mall yesterday.
Engagements at other malls within the city were cancelled. After the public activity, the athletes would be released to go and rest. Regarding consensual usage of athletes’ images, Mabua said that since they issued a statement condemning the act, the situation has improved. He added that now they are dealing with social media users utilising the athletes’ pictures to create fake pages.
“The challenge is that most of our athletes do not have contracts, which means they cannot protect their images. Professional runners such as Letsile Tebogo have protected their images.
“Regarding Collen Kebinatshipi, as a world champion, he can now renegotiate his contract because he signed the current contract as a promising junior athlete. But as a long-term plan, BAA will engage a professional who will assist us in this regard,” Mabua said. Meanwhile, diamond mining company, Debswana in collaboration with De Beers Group, will give the team P1.1million. The money will see gold medallists each get P70,000 and P60, 000 for bronze. Each finalist will earn P55,000 while those who journey ended at the semi final stage will get P50,000. Reserve athletes will be given P40,00, P30,000 for the the head coach, P25,000 for the assistant coaches and technical staff. Administrators and the medical team that accompanied the athletes will each receive P20,000. Orange Botswana will also hold a ceremony to honour the athletes tomorrow, as companies heed the call to reward the team.