|
Karatekas Excel At The Commonwealth Tourney |
|
|
|
 Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) hosted a ceremony at the National Stadium on Thursday to welcome the 10 men team that went to compete at the 3rd Commonwealth Karate Championships that were held in Scotland recently.
The Botswana team won 2 gold medals,2 silver medals and 4 bronze medals .The tournament featured 15 countries from the Commonwealth members and there were over 2000 participants, both juniors and seniors.
Speaking at the ceremony, BOKA President Gift Nkwe said “This was a tough tournament, this team really made us proud and Botswana made history by winning those medals .This is one of the biggest achievement Botswana Karate has ever done especially the recent poor performance of the team at the last year’s All Africa Games.”Botswana competed in the Commonwealth Karate Championships for the first time in 2003 held in Manchester and the team won a silver medal and 4 bronzes.
The junior team comprising of four under 15 boys made history by clinching 2 gold medals in the junior division. The boys’ team kumite 11-15 years of age comprising of Raffael Reid (13 yrs), Khaya Groth (11yrs) and Kyle Bannister (13yrs) knocked out England in the semi-finals and beat South Africa at the finals to claim the championship. In the individual category Mbise Takobana in the under 14 yrs kumite clinched the gold medal after outclassing Wales.
In the senior categories ,the highlight was on the last year’s BNSC junior sportsman of the nominee Nonofo Keokilwe who won three medals, Bronze medal in team kata and one silver medal each in the team kumite and under 75kg individual kumite category.
In other categories Vicky Majama and Tebogo Sedupelela won bronze medals in the kumite under 60kg and BDF Sportsman of the year award winner Tom Keoagile won a bronze in the Open division.
Gift Nkwe was also elected into the new executive committee of the Commonwealth Karate Federation. The karate president also testified that BOKA did not send female karatekas because funds did not permit and the coaches were not happy with their performance lately. The next Commonwealth Karate championships will be held in India in 2010.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
