Botswana’s top Olympic hopefuls are set to benefit from the Olympic Solidary scholarship ahead of the Paris 2024 summer Olympics.
The scholarships, which are awarded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), are expected to aid the local athletes to prepare and gain optimal performance by going through top class training camps.
A total of twelve (12) athletes from four sporting federations, Athletics, Swimming, Boxing and Weightlifting have been earmarked to benefit from the scholarships.
According to a statement from the Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC), the four-year scholarships are offered to potential athletes across the world ‘ahead of the next Olympic Games.’ “These scholarships are for preparations towards qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” BNOC said in the media statement.
The scholarship offers selected athletes a fixed monthly grant for their training and qualification costs.
As one would expect, track athletics leads the way of beneficiaries, with twelve (12) track athletes set to be in scholarships. The other nine are all from athletics being, Baboloki Thebe, Anthony Pesela, Bayapo Ndori Leungo Scotch, Ditiro Nzamani, Letsile Tebogo, Oratile Nowe Christine Botlogetswe and Galefele Moroko.
The remaining three beneficiaries are Alpheus Bokang Kagiso of Weightlifting, Maxine Catlin Egner of Swimming and Rajab Otukile Mohammed from Boxing.
Meanwhile, BNOC has warned that though an Olympic scholarship helps athletes to qualify for the coming Olympics, ‘Olympic Solidarity reserves the right to withdraw the scholarship from any athlete.’
BNOC went on to state that some of the factors that may lead to the withdrawal of scholarships include, failure to qualify for the Olympic Games Paris 2024, unethical behaviour (doping, discipline) Contravention of the athlete NOC scholarship agreement or Olympic Charter.
