Leemisa Thuseho
LESOTHO is not participating in the upcoming 2021 World Youth Championships; the Lesotho Times can reveal.
The championships will be held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 1 to 12 October 2021.
The Lesotho Weightlifting Federation (LWF) was supposed to have submitted the list of its preliminary team by 5 July this year. The final team list was expected to have been sent to the event organisers last week.
However, by then Lesotho did not have a team to register.
LWF secretary general Bothobile Shebe this week confirmed that Lesotho will not take part in the event after failing to meet the registration deadlines.
“The registrations are done a month or two before the event, so by then we didn’t have athletes who were meeting the official weight from whom to select a team,” Shebe said.
“This is because we have gone for about two years without competitions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”
The athletes who were already in the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) system are now over age, therefore they could not be registered, she said.
“Mohato Tšeloa and Relebohile Mokhele were registered in 2019 but they are now above 18 when eligible athletes are supposed to be less than 17 years old.”
Since sporting activities were first suspended in March last year on the back of Covid-19, the association only had its first event last weekend in Mohale’s Hoek and Shebe said it was already too late to select a team and register it for the event.
She however, said they were impressed by the athletes’ performance despite the long layoff.
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The federation is also expected to send a team to the Senior World Championships in Peru in December this year.
According to Shebe they have already selected the team which will be made up of two top lifters; Thapelo Sebota and Machachamise Ntšinyi.
