YOUTH GAMES GOING WELL – BAYGOC CHAIRPERSON Portia Keetile reporting for BOPA Botswana African Youth games Organising Committee (BAYGOC) chairperson, Regina Sikalesele-Vaka has reported that the games are going well as per the assessment from her committee and feedback from the Association of National Olympics Committees in Africa (ANOCA). Addressing the media at the University of Botswana this week, Sikalele-Vaka said the organising committee held meetings twice a day to check the progress and further address any issues arising from the ongoing games. She said the guests expressed their satisfaction with the hospitality and the general running of games. However, she stated that they experienced a slight hitch with cycling on Sunday due to the fact that they did not communicate with the public that some major roads in the city would be closed, which resulted in congestion and some misunderstandings. The chairperson indicated that the closing ceremony billed for Saturday, May 31, would not be as glamorous as the opening ceremony as it would be just a farewell party. Sikalesele-Vaka thanked Botswana Police Service and Botswana Defence Force (BDF) for a job well done pertaining to issues of security and further thanked ANOCA for the support. The BAYGOC CEO, Tuelo Serufho, said the games were a success in that they adhered to the Olympic philosophy of education, sport and culture. “We have partnered with World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as we have an elaborative programme with regard to athletics testing.” Therefore, he said it was a great opportunity for African athletes to get tested for doping as most of the times African athletes only get exposed to testing when they competed globally. He admitted that the committee had experienced technical problems, which hindered the setting up of a medal table. Serufho said seven of the 21 sporting codes being athletics, boxing, karate, netball, football, volleyball and swimming charged an entrance fee to enable management of crowd. He said it was done looking at the popularity of those codes in that some of the venues catered for a low capacity crowd. He said the tickets for the closing ceremony could be collected at Choppies and Mascom shops around Gaborone on a first come first serve basis. BAYGOC officer responsible for security, Mathews Letsholo said they had assessed events that occurred at the opening ceremony adding that they would be an increase of availability of parking spaces for public and dignitaries at the closing ceremony. He said movement would not be restricted as all the gates to the National Stadium would be open unlike the opening ceremony where a few gates were open. Moreover, he said the police would continue to share any information with the public pertaining to the closing ceremony on Saturday.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 07:21:10 +0000
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