The Botswana Darts National team has won 10 medals, bringing home one silver medal and nine bronze medals from the Region V games that were held in Matshapa, Eswatini last week.
The team took part under different categories that included the Under 25, senior (men and women and Veterans. Among the seven Southern African countries that participated at the competition, Botswana took position four with 142 points. South Africa became the champions with 211 points followed by Zimbabwe with 197 points while Namibia took position three with 150 points. Eswatini took position five with 121 points, Malawi got sixth position with 47 points while Zambia finished last without a point.
In an interview, Botswana Darts Association (BODA) Public Relations Officer Thato Maphorisa said he was satisfied with the performance of the team taking into consideration that they did not prepare well for the competition.
‘‘I would want to say we did not perform well but rather say other countries came prepared more than us, we did well with the performance we executed, if it was 2022 we would have still emerged champions, just that teams tripled their game whereas we did not,” he said.
Maphorisa lamented that they arrived late in Eswatini, and their players did not get enough rest before the commencement of the games. This as they faced budgetary constraints to afford proper camp. He however indicated that the players were key in ensuring that the team travels to Eswatini and compete by contributing money for the trip.
Team Botswana’s silver medal was secured by Malebogo Chidubi and Boipelo Masimele under the Ladies pair category. The bronze medals were awarded to Shimanyana Lebakeng and Ompaletse Siane under the Veterans pair category while Marius Poloka and Lame Poloka also won bronze under Youth pair category.
Another Youth pair made up of Thatayotlhe Robert and Laone Kereteletswe also won a bronze medal, Marius Poloka and Thatayotlhe Robert have repeatedly secured bronze medals under the Youth singles boys while Lame Poloka won bronze medal under the Youth girls category. The youth, ladies and veteran teams also received bronze medals. Keneilwe Kabanna managed to earn the second position under the Masters challenge and open Singles.
