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Africa Games not Olympic qualifiers

Botsang Tshenyego PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO
Botsang Tshenyego PIC: MORERI SEJAKGOMO

Africa remains the only continent where continental games are not Olympic qualifiers. Speaking during the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) ordinary general meeting, president, Colonel Botsang Tshenyego said Africa Games belong to the Africa Union (AU), which were handed to the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) a few years back.

He also said the previous games were organised by the AU and games management was done by ANOC. “These are government-based games but recently they decided to hand over the games to ANOC because of resources from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) and the Olympic movement.

It is up to the International Sports Federations (IFS) to decide if the games would continue as non Olympic qualifiers. These are political games, so we have to deal with the sport side and the political side,” he said. Tshenyego reminded the delegates that the Africa Games are being organised by the Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) not the BNOC. Meanwhile, the poor relationship between the Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport, and Culture (MYSC), the BNSC and the BNOC reared its ugly head.

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