Cycling pursues corporate sponsorship

The newly-elected Botswana Cycling Association (BCA) president, Mmetla Masire, has called on the business community to invest in the association’s activities.

In  a recent interview,  Masire said the BCA is one of the most organised sport codes based on the number of recent competitions they have organised. He described cycling as a relatively clean code that the business community can associate with. “Cycling has not been in the news for wrong reasons.” Masire was re-elected to the BCA presidency, which will see him holding the fort for the next three years. This follows the BCA’s new constitution, which replaced the old one, which gave the executive committee only a year in office.

Masire took over from Kagiso Potongwane three years ago and his mandate will be to grow the BCA’s sponsorship. In the past, the BCA had struggled with sponsorship like many other local sport codes. However, things have recently taken a turn for the better due to a surge of interest in cycling activities. Cycling has recently become one of the busiest sporting codes in the country. However, it has affiliate clubs like Tsela Riders that have enjoyed most sponsorship as compared to the association.

Companies like Mascom Wireless, Germ Diamond and World Group of Companies have been sponsoring cycling clubs. Masire praised the clubs for acquiring sponsorship. He said the association could also benefit if sponsors came forward. “This would allow us to send more cyclists to international competitions as opposed to the past years.”

Besides sponsorship growth he said they would be focusing on the implementation of youth structures in an effort to unearth future stars. In their previous term, Masire together with his committee members that included Tlamelo Dube, Tefo Monareng, Karabo Rasenyai, Jeremiah Kokwane and Anouk Van De Geest took the cycling community to international levels and rekindled love in cycling sport. This was proved in recent years when Botswana produced five level 1 qualified UCI coaches and two UCI level 2 qualified coaches.

BCA started its first grand participation in international competitions in 2014 when they participated in Africa Youth Games, which were held in Gaborone. Last year they sent four of their promising talents - Sethomo Masebe, Bakang Ebudilwe, James Masimo and Abueng Malete to the World Cycling Centre to prepare for the All Africa Games which were held in Congo Brazzaville. This year in the history of cycling sport in Africa, Botswana is ranked 7th in UCI ranking after a splendid performance in the recent mountain biking continental Championships in Lesotho.