Mikia Kalati
LAST week the Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC) announced that the feuding members of Lesotho Volleyball Association (LVA) had smoked the peace pipe following their mediation in collaboration with the Lesotho Sports and Recreation Commission (LSRC).
Well, there is no doubt that this is good news for volleyball fanatics as the sport had suffered a lot since the infighting started in 2016 and that had also come with sanctions from the African Volleyball Confederations (CAVB).
The suspension from the continental mother body meant that LVA was not getting any financial support from CAVB while its members could not also take part in its activities.
We are obviously all jubilant that LVA has conquered its demons, and we hope that it will be back on track as soon as possible.
However, several other sports associations in the country are also facing similar problems and could do with the mediation from the two sports mother bodies namely LNOC and LSRC.
The Lesotho Lawn Tennis Association (LTTA) and Lesotho Amateur Boxing Association (LeBA) are among the federations that have also faced power struggles of the last two years.
The netball association has also struggled for stability since the election of a new committee early last year.
Lesotho is preparing to host the 2020 Africa Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 Games but with all these problems within the associations, I doubt our teams will be able to rise to the occasion as expected because the infighting is taking us backwards.
Just as the LNOC and LSRC grabbed the bull by its horns to fix the mess at the volleyball association, they should do the same with the other federations that are troubled by conflicts.
We all know about the struggles of our country as far as performance is concerned in major sporting competitions and surely, that will never change as long as there are conflicts within the leadership of the associations.
This is also unfair to the athletes because most of the federations cannot even stage competitions to keep the players in shape.
There has been a lot of positivity regarding Lesotho’s performances in the last two editions of the Region 5 Games in Angola and Botswana in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
Lesotho has the potential to improve on the performances of 2016 and 2018, which on both occasions the Mountain Kingdom bagged its medals haul of 13.
That is way behind what countries like South Africa and Botswana got with our neighbours colleting a staggering 144 medals in total.
For a change, the focus should be on the athletes and not the administrators as has always been the case over the years.
There is a lot of talent in the Mountain Kingdom and all it needs is proper infrastructure as well as good administration to help athletes reach their true potential.
If only we do things right as a country, sports can play a huge part in the fight against poverty. It is no secret that it’s only a few of our athletes are making a living from sport both locally and internationally and that must change.
