Mosah Mokganedi
18 March 2008
A seven-member Botswana Hayashi-Ha team leaves today for Nevada, United States to participate in the World All-Styles Karate Open starting on Friday. Hayashi-Ha is the only style from Botswana invited for the tournament in Las Vegas.
The Botswana team will be under the tutelage of Sensei Mpho Bakwadi who left on Sunday to take part in the umpire's course that started yesterday. The team comprises Khaya Groth, Nonofo Keokilwe, Mohammad Ali Hussain, Kaene Kago, Kayle Bannister, Asheilan Naicker and the only female Pearl Ranna. All of them will take part in kata and kumite.
Other top names that were initially expected to travel with the team like Kevin Groth, Ofentse Bakwadi and Tebogo Molapong could not make it because of school and work commitments. Mpho Bakwadi said the absence of the three karatekas will obviously affect the team. He said the likes of Groth are a motivation to colleagues and his absence will not only affect the performance but the mood of the team.
Mpho Bakwadi said he did his best to motivate the travelling party. The martial arts tactician added that the team trained well and hoped that the karatekas will do the country proud.
"We are not taking part in this tournament for the first time and we have brought medals before," he said.
The team brought home two gold from the same tournament in Sweden and three silver medals when it was held in Malaysia. Mpho Bakwadi said the morale is very high in the camp as the team is eager to strut its stuff at the big stage. He added that even if they do not win medals, the tournament will help them to gain the much-needed exposure.
He admitted that the competition is going to be a very tough one but they will do their best. He expressed worry that the team will not have enough time to acclimatise in Las Vegas. He said they would have loved to leave earlier but they cannot because of limited funds.He was worried that they do not have enough women in Hayashi-Ha. "We do encourage women to join karate, but it seems there is a perception by women that karate is for men," he said.
Boitekanelo Bureau De Change, National Development Bank and Information Technologies Integrations (ITI) sponsored the trip to Las Vegas.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
