Monese departs for debut Olympics

Phetetso Monese (left) ready to fly the flag

Lesotho’s number one cyclist Phetetso Monese leaves today for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Rio Games will be Monese’s debut at the global showpiece and he will compete in the mountain bike cross country discipline. His event is scheduled for August 21 meaning he will have two weeks to acclimatise and get ready for the race.

Monese arrived back in Lesotho last week from a month-long trip to Europe where he competed at the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup and the BIKE Transalp stage race.

The ACE-The Sufferfest Lesotho MTB Team rider will be looking to continue his good form in Rio. The 31 year-old received special dispensation from the International Cycling Union (UCI) to compete at the Olympics as a result of his strong performances over the past year and Lesotho’s solid ranking.

Monese finished third at the African Continental MTB Championships in April in Butha-Buthe while Lesotho is ranked 33rd in the world.

Monese is rated 111th in the world and a good Olympics showing could see him crack the top 100 for the first time.

The Rio Olympics are Monese’s second major sporting event. He competed at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. Monese has been sponsored with a new M100 000 bike by Giant Bicycles South Africa.

A learning experience in Botswana

To netball and Lesotho’s Under-21 netball team has missed out on the 2017 Netball World Youth Cup after going winless at last week’s qualification tournament in Gaborone, Botswana.

Lesotho finished last in the eight-nation competition won by South Africa. The top three nations – South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda – qualified for the Netball World Youth Cup next August.

Botswana, as the hosts of next year’s global finals, will also represent Africa at the championships. Lesotho will be looking to use the experience gained in Gaborone to build for the African Union Sports Council Region 5 games which will be held in Angola in December.

Final Standings

		Points
1	South Africa	14
2	Zimbabwe	12
3	Uganda	10
4	Zambia	8
5	Malawi	6
6	Botswana	4
7	Namibia	2
8	Lesotho	0

Two more Lesotho athletes qualify for Rio 2016

Two more Lesotho athletes will be joining Mosito Lehata (centre)
 at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games

Two more Lesotho athletes have secured their spots at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

The two are Nomakoe Nkhasi and Tšepang Sello who secured their qualification at the Africa Senior Championships that were held in Durban, South Africa from June 22 to 26. Their trip to the Rio Games in August has been ratified by the Lesotho Amateur Athletics Association.

Nkhasi and Sello’s Rio qualification takes the number of track and field athletes to five. They join sprinter Mosito Lehata and marathon runners Tšepo Mathibelle and Lebenya Nkoka on the plane to Brazil in August.

In total, Team Lesotho currently has seven competitors with boxers Moroke Mokhotho and Inkululeko Suntele also Olympic-bound. Nkhasi qualified in the 5000 metres where he finished sixth in a time of 13 minutes, 21.58 seconds. The Mokhotlong born Nkhasi was raised in South Africa and first represented Lesotho earlier this year in Botswana. He has never competed at the Olympics before.

Sello is also based in South Africa. She qualified for Rio after placing fourth in the 1500 metres in a time of 4 minutes, 13.29 seconds.

Lesotho’s number one sprinter Mosito Lehata also continued his fine 2016 form by setting a new personal best 100 metres time of 10.04 seconds to win silver at the Africa Senior Championships.

Lehata beat his previous best of 10.11 seconds which he set last April in Mauritius. Lehata has already qualified for the Rio Olympics in August and is hoping to take his promising form into the Games.

The Rio Olympics are slated for August 5 to 21.

Tšepo Mathibelle fine-tuning for Rio 2016 in Kenya

Road To Rio: Tšepo Mathibelle (in white) in Kenya

Lesotho marathon specialist Tšepo Mathibelle says his Olympic training camp in Kenya is going well.

Mathibelle is working out at the High Performance Athletics Training Camp in Kaptagat, Kenya.

He started the camp on May 29 in preparation for the 2016 Rio Games in August.

The 24 year-old said he will not take part in any races from now until the 42.2 kilometres Olympic marathon race on 21 August.

“The competition that I am going to compete in is the Rio Olympics,” Mathibelle said. “For now I am just training. The Olympic Games marathon is on the 21st of August while other events start on the 5th; the marathon will be when the Games are being closed.”

“Training is going very well. I will be here for two months. I started on the 29th of May and will leave on the 31st of July,” Mathibelle said.

Mathibelle is part of an elite training camp featuring a number of Rio 2016 medal hopefuls.

Kenya is widely recognised as the world’s best location for marathon training and the country has a proud tradition of producing premier long distance athletes. Kaptagat is an area within the Kenyan highlands. With routes that begin at an altitude of around 2400 metres, it is known world over as an ideal place for athletes to train.

By training in Kenya, Mathibelle is looking to build on the gains he has made over the past four years.

Tšepo Mathibelle

Last year, he finished in a praiseworthy 14th place in a time of 2:17:17 hours at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China.

On April 3, Mathibelle finished seventh at the Daegu International Marathon in South Korea and recorded a best personal time of 2:15:39. The new mark bettered his previous best of 2:16:21 set at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

“The training camp has runners from around the world that are going to Rio. Right now I am also with runners that are going to the Berlin Marathon (in September). It’s very good,” Mathibelle said.

He continued: “My personal best will go down again now that I am here training amongst the best runners in the world.”

The Rio Olympics are slated for August 5 to 21. The marathon will be the Games’ closing event.

2016 Rio Olympics Football Draw - Africa's Path

Olympic-bound
South Africa's women's team Banyana Banyana

Africa now knows its path to gold at the Rio 2016 Olympic football tournament.

The Olympic football tournament will have a total of 58 matches with 32 for the men and 26 for the women.

Africa will have three teams in the men’s competition (Algeria, Nigeria and South Africa) and two in the women’s (South Africa and Zimbabwe).

In the women’s draw, South Africa has been given a tough assignment having been drawn into Group E alongside hosts Brazil as well as China and Sweden. Zimbabwe, who upset Cameroon to qualify, will compete in Group F against Canada, Australia and juggernauts, Germany.

South Africa’s men’s team will also face-off against the hosts and kick-off their campaign against Brazil at the Estadio Mane Garrincha in Brasilia. Also in South Africa’s Group A is Iraq and Denmark.

Nigeria, Olympic winners in 1996, will fancy their chances of progressing out of Group B where they have been drawn against Sweden, Colombia and Japan.

Africa’s final team in the men’s competition, Algeria, has a slightly tougher task. The North Africa nation faces Honduras and the difficult pair of Portugal and Argentina who won the title in 2004 and 2008 and is again one of the pre-tournament favourites.

The tournament gets under way on August 3 with five other cities aside from Rio staging games: Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Manaus, Salvador and Sao Paulo. Both finals will be played at the Estadio Maracana with the women going for gold on August 19 and the men following suit the next day.

Rio 2016 Full Draw:

Men

Group A: Brazil, South Africa, Iraq, Denmark

Group B: Sweden, Colombia, Nigeria, Japan

Group C: Fiji, Korea Republic, Mexico, Germany

Group D: Honduras, Algeria, Portugal, Argentina

Women

Group E: Brazil, China, Sweden, South Africa

Group G: USA, New Zealand, France, Colombia

Group F: Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe, Germany

Suntele Inkululeko qualifies for 2016 Olympic Games

Inkululeko: Boxing success for Lesotho

The list of athletes that will represent Lesotho at the Rio Olympic Games in August has grown to four after the qualification of boxer Suntele Inkululeko.

Inkululeko joins marathon runners Tšepo Mathibelle and Motlokoa Nkhabutlane as well as sprinter Mosito Lehata as the members of Team Lesotho thus far.

Inkululeko won his place by qualifying from the AIBA African Olympic Qualification Event that was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon from March 11 to 19.

Inkululeko, who fights in the 56-kilogram bantamweight class, beat Uganda’s Atanas Mugerwa 2-1 in their qualification decider.

The Olympic Games are slated for August 5 to 21 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lesotho’s history at the Olympics

Lesotho’s National Olympic Committee (LNOC) was formed in 1971 and was recognised by the International Olympic Committee in 1972. Lesotho made its Olympic debut that year and has since competed at every Olympic Games except for 1976 when the country joined the Africa boycott. In its Olympic history, Lesotho has entered 45 athletes (35 men, 10 women) and competed in four sports: athletics (26 men, seven women), boxing (eight men), swimming (one woman) and taekwondo (one man, two women).

Lesotho, Munich 1972

Lesotho’s best Olympic Games performances have all come in the men’s marathon race. Thabiso Moqhali finished 16th of 100 entrants in 2000 and 33rd of 110 contestants in 1992. Thabiso Ralekhetla was 29th of 124 runners in 1996 and Vincent Rakhabele was 36th of 74 in 1980 and 61st of 107 in 1984. Frans Ntaole finished 40th in 1984. 

Lesotho, Seoul 1988 

Other notable results for Lesotho include middleweight boxer Sello Mojela winning his first bout in 1988 and finishing tied for ninth place and a similar result for welterweight Mokete Mokhosi in 2000 in taekwondo.