Records broken, recognition denied: The sport award surprises
Kabelo Boranabi | Monday May 18, 2026 06:00
It was a night of unquestionable winners and uncomfortable omissions that have since taken on a life of their own. On one side of the ledger, there was absolute clarity. The men’s 4x400m relay team, fresh from a 2025 World Championship triumph, was deservedly crowned Team of the Year.
The team’s coach, Chilume 'Chippa' Ntshwarang, was recognised for guiding a unit that continued to elevate Botswana’s global athletics reputation with consistency and authority.
In the individual categories, 400m World Champion Collen Kebinatshipi delivered a season too dominant to ignore, sweeping both Sportsman of the Year and the overall Sportsperson of the Year awards. In pure performance terms, it was separation from the field, clean, decisive, and globally validated.
There was little argument, as world titles tend to settle debates before they begin. But sport, as always, refuses to stay neat.
Outside the winners’ podium were two of the most compelling sporting narratives Botswana produced in 2025: tennis sensation Ntungamili Raguin and the ever-improving Gaborone United women's team, the Red Roses.
Raguin’s season was built not on a single breakthrough moment, but on sustained international pressure and consistency. He collected multiple ITF junior titles across the year, climbed steadily through the global junior rankings, and made history as Botswana’s first junior Grand Slam competitor. He did not just participate, but won matches on debut, turning a historic appearance into a competitive statement.
By season’s end, he had pushed into the upper tier of junior tennis, becoming the first Motswana to break into the ITF junior Top 50. For a country still building its tennis identity, that is not just progress but it is a structural shift in expectation. Yet when the awards were decided, Raguin did not feature in the Sportsman of the Year conversation and could only walk home with the Junior Sportsman of the Year recognition.
That gap has triggered the uncomfortable question now hanging over the awards: when does sustained international success, historic firsts, and global ranking progression become enough to outweigh traditional visibility in sports?
Because on merit alone, Raguin was not outside the conversation; he was part of it, even if the final outcome did not reflect that reality.
The Red Roses’ case is even more layered. Under William 'Raizor' Monene, they continued their domestic dominance with a third consecutive league title, reinforcing their status as Botswana’s most consistent women’s football force.
But 2025 was not just about local control but about expansion into new territory. Their COSAFA Women’s Champions League triumph marked a defining moment, built on aggressive attacking football and standout individual contributions, including Gaonyadiwe Ontlametse’s sharp goal-scoring form that repeatedly swung matches in their favour.
Ontlametse’s performances placed her firmly in the wider national conversation for Sportswoman of the Year, alongside 800m runner Oratile Nowe, who herself produced a brilliant season on the track and remained one of Botswana’s strongest female contenders. Monene’s influence was equally historic. He guided the Red Roses to their second regional final appearance, secured the COSAFA crown, and became the first Motswana coach to lift that title.
He then led the team into the CAF Women’s Champions League finals stage, where they tested themselves against Africa’s elite and gained invaluable continental experience.
By any competitive measure, this was a season that extended beyond domestic dominance into continental relevance. Yet at the awards ceremony, both the team and Monene walked away without recognition in the Team of the Year and Coach of the Year categories.
Instead, those honours went to the men’s 4x400m relay team and Chilume Ntshwarang, decisions that are entirely defensible given their world championship success, but still part of a wider conversation about how different sports are weighed against each other.
Even the Zebras added another layer to the debate. Their AFCON 2025 campaign earned them Team of the Year nomination consideration, whilst goalkeeper Goitseone Phoko entered the Sportsman of the Year discussion.
Neither converted into wins, but both were acknowledged through the revived Minister’s Special Award, a category typically reserved for outstanding contributions that fall outside the main award structure.
And that detail matters because when a 'special recognition' award is introduced or revived, it often signals something deeper that the main categories could not comfortably accommodate all forms of excellence presented.
The truth at the centre of it all is not that the wrong winners were chosen. Kebinatshipi earned his dominance, and the relay team earned their global gold. Athletics remains Botswana’s most reliable source of world-stage success, and awards naturally gravitate towards that level of achievement.
But then tension sits elsewhere as Raguin represents a new generation of athletes operating in global junior systems where consistency and ranking progression matter as much as headline medals.
The Red Roses represent a new generation of club dominance, one that is no longer confined to domestic success but now competing, adapting, and learning at the continental level.
Ontlametse’s emergence adds another layer to that shift, where football excellence is beginning to demand recognition alongside track and field tradition. All of them are pushing against the same invisible boundary of how sporting excellence is defined and measured in 2025 and beyond.
So the question the 45th Botswana Sports Awards leaves behind is not whether the winners deserved their trophies. They did, but the question is whether the system that recognises them is evolving fast enough to fairly measure excellence in all its modern forms or whether some achievements still carry more weight simply because they are easier to benchmark.
Because in 2025, the local sport scene did not suffer from a lack of champions, but could have suffered from a lack of space big enough to fit them all.