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No Sponsor For Annual Athletics Champs |
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The annual Botswana Athletics Association (BAA) national track and field championships will be staged over the weekend at the UB stadium without a sponsor. In the past years Debswana mining company has been at the helm of sponsoring the one day event. The annual event attracts athletes across the country.
The BAA spokesperson Glody Dube is a disappointed man that this year the championships will not be sponsored. He said the year has been hectic for BAA and the championships could have been staged some time back.
“We could have staged the championships sometime back but we could not due to busy schedule before the Olympics,” said Dube. He said it has been difficult for the association to convince companies to sponsor athletics.
“Companies drag their feet when it comes to sponsoring athletics. Only if companies can be convinced that they stand to benefit from sponsoring athletics more will come on board,” explained the BAA spokesperson.
He said it does not mean that if the event used to be sponsored by Debswana other companies could not come on board. He said BAA is lobbying private companies to sponsor the sport.
Dube said he expects the athletes to come for the Championship but he predicted that the number will be low because there won’t be any prize money. “Athletes like in other sports codes are motivated by incentives and when there is no money some athletes won’t see the need to take part in the event,” the disappointed former champion explained.
He further said the BAA president; Moses Bantsi is coming from the just ended Olympics and is expected to meet the management of Debswana to ask for sponsorship. He encouraged athletes to come in large numbers as they will be medals to be won at the end of the day.
“There is no registration fee for the event. More over competition won’t be categorized according to age,” explained Dube.
He said the event had to go on regardless of whether there is a sponsor or not because the International Athletics Associations Federation (IAAF) has to be given the results. He said if they fail to stage the championship it would mean that the BAA would not have met one of the IAAF requirements.
All athletes who took part in the just ended Olympics are expected to take part.
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