Botswana wins Youth Games bid

MOSAH MOKGANEDI
Staff Writer | Thursday March 14, 2013 00:00

 

Palenfo delivered the good news during a ceremony broadcast live on Botswana Television (Btv). Now Gaborone is preparing to welcome over 4,000 athletes from 53 countries for the competition. Botswana showed interest in hosting the event in 2010 and Palenfo said after their visit last year, it was not difficult to awards Botswana the hosting rights. He observed that something that impressed them was the cooperation and commitment that the Botswana Government showed during the bidding process.

Botswana was the only country to show interest in hosting the event.However, in the case ANOCA was not impressed they would have opened another bid. Some of the issues considered before giving the hosting rights were infrastructure, accommodation and venues.Palenfo advised Batswana that for the event to be successful it needs cooperation of all stakeholders. 'The organisation of these games impacts the entire city and its citizens,' he said.

Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture Shaw Kgathi told Palenfo that Botswana was excited to accept the honour. 'I must be quick to indicate that this event is a culmination of many months of hard work, anxiety and excitement.Not only did we resolve to bid to host the games, but we had to canvass for support for our candidature, adhere to strict timelines set by ANOCA and put together a very comprehensive candidature file to convince ANOCA that indeed we are ready,' Kgathi said. He added that the interests to host the games was followed by an arduous process of putting facts together to be able to convince cabinet to grant permission to submit a bid on behalf of the country. Kgathi assured Palenfo that Botswana would make the best of the hosting of the games. Botswana will also use the games to test its readiness to host more bigger competitions.