National Darts Team Reap Gold In Namibia

By Boitumelo Khutsafalo
Staff Writer | Monday September 15, 2008 00:00

 

The team won 24 medals - six gold, five silver and 13 bronze.

BODA spokesperson, Peter Sekgwama said that this is the best performance by the Botswana darts team, which finished third in the competition behind South Africa and Lesotho.

Sekgwama said the team only trained for three days before the championships.  'I have a belief that if we had trained longer, we would have done even better than this,' he told Monitor Sport. He attributed the good performance to the selection criteria used for the championships.

He said that they held selections in Mahalapye and Gaborone and included three new players in the men's team.

He added that they will make further improvements in the selection. BODA has asked a South African darts expert, Kassai Pretorious for advise on the criteria they used to select teams. Pretorious is the Zone VI tournament director.

Sekgwama expressed concern that darts is still a less popular sport in Botswana.
He said that if it was another sport, the national team would have been given a heroe's welcome after the good performance in Namibia. 'Maybe it is because people still have a feeling that this game is played by drunkards.

I can only encourage more people to come forward and play this sport and perhaps encourage kids to play,' he added.

BODA took 18 players to Namibia including the two veterans each in the women and men's teams.