Gaborone — In their effort to broaden sport development in the country, Botswana Tertiary Student Sport Association (BOTESSA) has added more sporting codes to their list.

In an interview with the president of the association on the side-lines of the inaugural BOTESSA games, Keorapetse Setlhare said rugby, swimming, 3x3 basketball, boxing and karate were some of the new codes they had included in their competitions.

He said they choose codes that were lagging behind and that the new ones had the potential to benefit the country as some of their athletes could be chosen for national team assignments.

Setlhare said it was also a way of encouraging their institutions to accommodate the codes and that they found it imperative to host the games this year. He said they had also managed to run coaching clinics for some of the codes and added that the games were a follow-up to the coaching clinics to see how they performed.

He said their desire was to send a 3x3 basketball team to continental and international university competitions, and that their dream was to see some of their players in the national team and Olympics.

Setlhare said they had a pool of athletes who were talented in different codes, but that they were disadvantaged by not competing.

"I am hopeful that the second edition will be bigger and better," he said.

Meanwhile, in the Rugby 7's University Sport South Africa were crowned the men's champions after beating University of Botswana 22-0.

In the women's category, Phoenix beat University Sport South Africa 22-7 to be crowned the champions.

BOPA