BNOC targets four medals at next Olympics
Naledi Lemogang | Thursday August 31, 2017 15:56
The strategy aims to improve and support the growth of elite athletes in Botswana.
Speaking during the 2017-2020 strategic plan presentation, BNOC chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho said the strategy will build on the foundations established and successes achieved in previous years with a fresh perspective on its mission and current reality. He said the BNOC will strengthen elite athletes’ capacity and potential within Botswana for better performance following their strategic foundations.
“Our athletes keep on getting injuries more often during their international participation. Therefore, we intend to improve monitoring them and offer more qualified medical services. We also want to increase the funding of elite athletes’ development. However, we can only do that by partnering with key sport stakeholders for financial assistance,” Serufho said. He said their intention is to send 15 athletes to the Olympics and 30 to the Commonwealth Games.
“Botswana is pregnant with talent from the athletes to the officials. Therefore through our strategy, we also want to improve the talent identification because in most cases some people lack opportunities to display their talents,” he said.
Serufho said Botswana’s Long-Term Athlete Development (BLTAD) is one of the core strategies that can be used to assist in growing the pool of elite athletes and essential to deliver internationally.
Serufho highlighted that one of their weakness is inadequate funding and over-reliance on government, which limits their pace to search for other sources of funding. He said they want to reduce dependence on government, which will necessitate improving their funding model.
“We cannot depend on the government for a long time because we are not aware of what the economy of Botswana will turn to in the next years. Therefore, we have to structure a functional funding model that reduces over-reliance on government and seek to establish productive partnerships with private stakeholders,” he said.
BNOC president, Negroes Kgosietsile said the strategy seeks to develop competitive athletes to achieve their targets. He urged stakeholders to work together and assist the organisation to achieve its mission.
“As BNOC, we commit to doing our best to not only produce quality athletes, but science and medicine personnel. Therefore, we cannot do this alone that is why we found it necessary to reveal our strategy to our stakeholders,” he said.