Development key to DTCB club success

The secret behind the weekend’s sweepstake by the Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB) boxing team at the weekend’s boxing tournament has been revealed. The decorated club continued its onslaught on the local amateur boxing landscape after winning the 2015 edition of the Botswana Boxing Association (BoBA) National Championships staged from Saturday to Sunday in Gaborone.

With a total of five gold medals up for grabs for the competing teams, the DTCB stable managed to walk away with all of them, something for which the club’s headcoach Thebe Setlalekgosi could not hide his excitement. He raved about how the club’s consistency over the past three years had been backed up by their deliberate decision to focus on the grassroots. “We started a development program where we adopted schools and trained Form One students back in 2009. By 2012 the boxers started to mature,” Setlalekgosi told Sun Sports.

Since 2012, the club has been winning the national championships or finishing as runners up to the likes of Tsholofelo Boxing Club. “In most cases we were tied on   points and Tsholofelo would beat us with medal count. In the past three years we won the championship twice in 2012 and 2015,” he said.
Setlalekgosi referred to the development program as one of the best in the country given that DTCB club boxers make up about 50 percent of the current national team.  

The boxers that won gold medals for DTCB at the finals in Gaborone on Sunday include Kabelo Bagwasi (60kg), Marshall Mokgwaela (49kg), Kagiso Bagwasi (64kg), Kutlwano Ogaketse (56kg) and Thabang Motsewabeng (81kg). In addition, Setlalekgosi said his team consisted of predominantly young athletes between the ages of 18 to 23 years. Added Setlalekgosi, “Some of the schools we have adopted include Gaborone Secondary School where we train. We are also affiliated to junior secondary schools like Tlogatloga and Maikano.”

Setlalekgosi revealed that other boxing clubs like BMC, Tsholofelo and Mafika have similar development programs, an undertaking he glorified although he also lamented the lack of such development programs at well-resourced military based clubs.

Although the resources they have could assist in proper development of athletes, military clubs only wait for practising boxers to join the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) before they can absorb them into their programs. However, Setlalekgosi expressed delight that the Sunday tournament was well organised.