Botswana Kofukan Federation (BKF) team is the champions of the 2016 Botswana Karate Association (BOKA) National Club championships.
This follows their massive dominance of the BOKA tournament which was staged at Molapo Crossing hall in Gaborone on Saturday.
Teams at the champions competed both team Kata and kumite in different age categories.
Despite this being a national club championships tournament, it was overshadowed by a no-show of the affiliates of BOKA, with only three out of fifteen affiliates gracing the championships.
Only BKF, Hayashi-ha and JKA Rising Stars competed at the championships, which is the flagship event as well as the last activity in the BOKA calendar of events.
The championship then degenerated into a showdown between Sensei Million Masumbika’s BKF and Shi-han Mpho Bakwadi’s Hayashi-ha, with JKA Rising Stars coming a distant third.
Kofukan scooped 6 gold medals and 4 silver out of 11 categories followed by Hayashi-ha and JKA rising star respectively.
BKF team coach George Tshikare attributed their victory to hard work and commitment amongst the team who have been hard at training for the past weeks even though the tournament was poorly attended.
“We have long prepared for this tournament because our intentions was to end Hayashi-Ha’s long term dominance, we tested our karatekas strengths and readiness at the last week Kofukan open that was held in Francistown where they did fairly well and we have been hard at training working much on physical fitness and power which i believed that it was still lacking amongst my team and they cooperated well hence we won the tournament” he said.
Team Kofukan comprising of Mpho Bosenakitso,Oratile Caiphus,Kabelo Molefe,Tirafalo Tsimamma and Batlareng Shabane beat Team Hayashi-Ha made of youthful squad (Rafael Reid,Kaene Kago,Thabang Setshego and Teto Wakwena) 3-1 to win gold in the senior male team Kumite while JKA settled for bronze.
Team Hayashi Ha dominated the Kata sections winning Gold in senior female kata followed by Kofukan in 2nd position, while Team JKA led by the 2016 sports woman of the year and all Africa games Silver medalist Lame Hetanang won Gold in senior female kumite category.
” it was dissapointing to see only 3 clubs competing in the tournament where as we have over 15 BOKA affiliated clubs in the country. The level of competition was not of what we expected, we were hoping to see highly contested tournament amongst the best in the country but some of them did not turn up with only reasons known by them and they did not bother to notify the association that they were not coming and I suggest serious measures to be taken against them “said Tshikare.
He further highlighted the importance of consistency amongst the karatekas especially youth in order to make it easy for national team selectors when assembling a national team at any given time of the month.
“It is important for karatekas to be consistent in taking part in all tournaments within the BOKA calendar of events and the association its self has to make sure that they hosts all tournaments and put aside administrative issues which i think its blocking the progress in the development of the sport and athletes” Tshikare added.
The club championships marked the end of the 2016 BOKA calendar of events which started early this year with handful of local and international tournaments.
