Let�s nurture and develop this talent

Thuso Palai | Thursday May 29, 2014 10:24

 

Development is key for sporting success. All the major players that win medals on a regular at major events like the Olympic Games have well planned out, well refined, well-coordinated, well resourced, targeted development programmes in place. It is rather unfortunate that in most cases and across most sporting codes, we rely on a hit or miss model, whereby we stumble upon talent that was not developed from early years. If we are to be world beaters, that has to change immediately.

One thing that I will most certainly take from this tournament is that we do have talent and this is a great opportunity for us to identify the talent while raw and work on making it world class in a few years.   This is a crucial stage for the athletes and the different codes. This is the time for the codes to start identifying potentials and putting in place measures to ensure that they don’t fall through the gaps and get lost to sport. Now is the time for the different sporting codes to strategize, with a plan to have these potential future stars represent the country and win medals at major international events in the next few years.

What was really heartening for me is that we participated in all the sporting codes, including those ones I never knew we could play. We even won some medals in some of the lesser known codes, which really gave me hope that we indeed are a talented nation. As much as I did not expect medals in Taekwondo, Judo, Rowing, Canoeing and Fencing, I was proud that we fielded teams in those codes. These are the lesser known sports in Botswana and obviously attract less attention and participation.

However, we have seen that there is potential in the codes and for some reason, I feel these are codes that we should focus a bit more on. I always have a problem with the fact that we focus mainly on the mainstream popular sports like football, Volleyball, Netball and Boxing amongst others. I got to realise that if we were to put some attention in the less popular sport codes, we could actually make some headway and challenge for honours there.

Sponsors also need to appreciate that they can also start helping to unearth future stars in the lesser known sporting codes. The powers that be should also make a note that these less popular sports need more financial support as they can bring medals for the country. I had a discussion with a friend the other day, and the issue was as to why sport codes like football get the bulk of the finances while football never wins any medal at any level for the country. Shouldn’t we instead focus more on codes that bring glory?

Back to the Games; We have indeed unearthed and unleashed Botswana’s rising stars, and now the onus is on us as a country to ensure they are development so they win medals for Botswana in the next 5 years or so.