BAA FINAL SERIES AT NATIONAL

BAA FINAL SERIES AT NATIONAL

Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) will use tomorrow’s series as qualifiers for the combined Under 18 and 20 championships billed for Zambia April 29 to May 3.



The series, the fourth and last scheduled for the National Stadium, would also be used as Budapest World Championships qualifiers, and also hone the athletes’ skill ahead of the Botswana Golden Grand Prix.



BAA vice president, Oabona Theetso, said in an interview that they had planned to host four series this season and had already held threes in Francistown.



“Currently we have Letsile Tebogo who has already qualified for Budapest World Championships and we are yet to confirm Bayapo Ndori’s qualification as they now qualify through World Athletics rankings,” he said.



Furthermore, Theetso said they were expecting many athletes to try their luck, given that it would be the last series.



He said failure to qualify on Saturday, would force athletes to start travelling outside the country for more races.



“Big names should be expected on Saturday because they were yet to qualify for the major events,” he said.



Theetso said he was confident that this season a lot of athletes would do well in their different competitions as a lot of them showed hunger in the previous season.



National team coach, Justice Dipeba, said the competition would help coaches to gauge their athletes.



He said it was still early in the season and the fact that they did not have indoor competitions, athletes had to wait so that they reach the peak in time for the competitions.



“Sometimes it can be very tricky, because some prefer to qualify early while some prefer to wait for the right time,” he said.



Furthermore, he said they would use the weekend meet to analyse athletes’ fitness and also rectify their slip-ups.



“This will be the last series, but remember we still have three competitions on home soil, according to the calendar we have Botswana Golden Grand Prix, and sort of a dry run race on March 25, and then BAA Nationals,” he said.

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Source: BOPA