The Botswana National Committee (BNOC) on Monday joined National Olympic Committees worldwide to commemorate the inception of the Olympic movement.
It is celebrated annually on the 23th June dubbed the Olympic Day Celebration.
With a little twist to the year 2021 all thanks to the corona virus pandemic, this year’s ODC is commemorated by a challenge from the BNOC to Batswana through participating in a six week 100- 400km challenge.
This challenge however, will be administered through a running application “Strava”.
The participants will receive weekly give-away prices for those leading the leader board according to the challenge they have selected between 100, 200, 300 and 400 km.
Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC) Tumiso Rakgare, the French Ambassador to Botswana Laurence Beau, the President of BNOC Carnal Tshenyego along with staff went on a 10km walk to launch the challenge.
“This is a great initiative and I love that BNOC is promoting healthy living. Non-communicable diseases kill. Activities like this will help decrease this ill,” said Rakgare.
He pointed out that doing small yet effective workouts like walking or jogging can help cut down on the money the government uses on health due to unclean lifestyles.
“This challenge only needs your time. Let us try to wear our shorts and sport shoes, get on the road and walk for the sake of our health. I wish to do 10km per day until the 23rd of June,” Rakgare pointed out.
As bad as Covid-19 is, he highlighted that he is grateful that it has pushed people to embrace technology.
“Now we can embrace technology and find ways to work through it. I also want to encourage the youth to take an opportunity in app development and just maybe they may come up with great initiatives which we are always open to listen to,” she said.
Covid-19 has proven that we cannot only do things physical but with a little help from technology we will go far.
