Mikia Kalati
PREPARATIONS for the Confederations of Schools Sports Association of Southern Africa (COSSASA) Games to be held in Lesotho from 31 August to 3 September 2017 are at advanced stage, the organising committee has revealed.
The organising committee’s Public Relations Officer, Teboho Pholo, this week told the Lesotho Times the games that will feature seven countries over four days.
“Our preparations are at an advanced stage and everything is in place to host all the countries that have confirmed their participation,” Pholo said, adding, “The venues for the different sporting codes are ready and we are looking forward to the games.”
He said they hosted Pholo said they recently hosted a COSSASA delegation who had come to ascertain the country’s readiness to host the regional school games.
“Our visitors from COSSASA were very happy with our preparations and luckily they came at the time when we were also having our national school championships.
“It’s just a matter of putting final touches to a few things to ensure everything is in place come next week.
“The only sad part is of all the companies we sent sponsorship proposals only one has come on board to sponsor the games.”
Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Lesotho will all be represented in the under-13 and under-17 categories in basketball, soccer, volleyball, rugby, tennis and netball.
Lesotho are the defending champions in the under-13 and 17 categories of soccer having won gold last year.
The Lesotho under-17 team will be bidding to win gold for the third successive year having won it in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
“We had our own school championships over the weekend and competition was very high among the schools.
“We hope that our players will take the competitiveness to their regional counterparts and use home advantage to do well and get as many medals as possible.
“My only disappointment is that we did not have a good crowd and I hope that it will improve when we host our regional friends.”
Lesotho last hosted the COSSASA games in 2015.
