Boxing, athletics shine in SCSA Zone V1 Games

MOGOMOTSI BUZWANI
Correspondent | Wednesday December 22, 2010 00:00

Botswana National Sports Council (BNSC) Marketing and Communications Officer Modiri Ontitile said in overall, Botswana has exceeded the targeted medals based on the previous results obtained in the SCSA held in South Africa two years back. 

'They have shown improvement and the team exceeded the set target. Boxing and athletics, in particular, did much better than other codes,' he said.

The Botswana team has moved from position four to three after winning 15 gold medals, 12 silver and 24 bronze medals.

The Boxing team has broken the record by the welterweight Ofentse Kompone (69kg) who won the gold giving Botswana four gold medals, one silver medal and two bronze medals.

Botswana beat Zambia by a single medal to become the runners-up with six medals.  

The athletics team collected 40 medals from the 11 gold received, 10 silver and 19 bronze medals to lead the 10 participating countries. South Africans with 37 medals were the runners-up.  Botswana's high jumper Gobe Taboka broke many hearts after he jumped 2.12m by flying 2.20m higher.

The netball team, which started the competition on a winning streak managed to get position three after Malawi and South Africa. The only codes that failed to secure themselves better results are the men, women's basketball teams and swimming.

Ontitile said failure to reap better results in swimming was due to lack of game exposure to the local athletes and that many of them are still young.

'Most of our athletes are still under age and not yet experienced than the South Africans,' Ontitile said.