Drug testing depletes BNOC coffers
Kabelo Boranabi | Tuesday December 6, 2016 14:52
Speaking at the BNOC Annual General Assembly (AGA) held in Gaborone recently, Serufho said the BNOC is losing large amounts of money, as they now have to send the samples to Europe for verification after the Bloemfontein laboratory was shut down by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) last year.
“Last year we managed to do 50 tests but this time the number of tests has dropped to 43 because now we are spending more money following the closure of the Bloemfontein laboratory.
We then resorted to another lab in Doha, which has since been closed too. With these currency differences the BNOC is spending more money in sending samples to Europe,” he said. Serufho however said they are in talks with government to help with the costs.
He said of the 43 tests, 33 were done outside of competition while 10 were done during competitions. “There were no adverse findings in the samples we have taken so far. I would say this is a positive development and this has been accomplished by the education we have been giving our athletes,” Serufho told the gathering.
For his part, BNOC president Negros Kgosietsile said the committee remains committed to clean sport and also encouraged the coaches to tighten their screws when dealing with issues of anti-doping. “The athletes are with you, the coaches, so we have to roll up our socks. From our side we remain committed to clean sport,” he said.
The country has recorded four cases of the use of illegal substances with most recent being the two rugby sevens team who were slapped with a four year ban, which was later reduced to two for testing positive for a banned substance at a competition in South Africa last year.
The incident followed former 400m champion Amantle Montsho who tested positive for methylhexaneamine, a banned substance, at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Montsho was handed a two-year ban, which she has completed.
Meanwhile, Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) and Botswana Softball Association have been promoted from associate members to full members of the BNOC following a majority vote of the members at the BNOC. The move followed the introduction of karate and softball to the Olympic games.