The Botswana Judo Federation is in preparations for the South African International Open Championships, which are to be held in South Africa in July. The Federation has set up three training camps for the members attending the Championships.
“The first training camp is on the 16 May 2009, the second on 06 June 2009 and the last is on 20 June 2009; and in these camps, we will be bringing in a national coach to continue with what the individual club coaches have been doing,” said JUDO president, Estony Hattingh. She further said that all along the teams have been training with their individual coaches at their respective clubs and that they had been cooperating very well with individual coaches.
Hattingh said the championships usually attract five to six countries and Botswana has competed in them since 1996.
“The Botswana team last year sent 12 BOJAKA Judo players and 3 officials to attend the SA Championships in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and we managed to bring back home two silver medals in the U/90kg kurash weight division and two bronze medals in the Masters Division and in the Nage-No-Kata (1st Kata Group) division,” she said.
Botswana will this year send a team of 55 members, 21 of them being from SOS Children’s village.
“I am positive that the participants will bring back home medals, even more than what we had last year,” she said.
