BAA races the clock to build 2028 African Champs

In Botswana, the applause from one triumph has barely faded before the demands of the next begin. So it is for the Botswana Athletics Association, which now finds itself in a familiar and unforgiving position: racing against the calendar to assemble the machinery for the 2028 African Senior Athletics Championships, a continental showpiece it won the right to stage but has not yet begun to build.

The association is moving to establish a Local Organising Committee and a skeletal secretariat – a lean operational core – to carry the preparations forward. Botswana secured the hosting rights earlier this year, a coup that places the country in line to welcome some of the continent’s finest athletes and adds another marquee fixture to a sporting calendar that has grown steadily more ambitious.

The clock, however, is already running. And Oabona Theetso, the BAA’s acting president, is adamant that no corner of the country’s athletics community should be left on the sidelines.

The Ordinary General Meeting scheduled for Palapye on October 24 is expected to serve as the launchpad for that conversation, shaping the structure and composition of the organising committee that will, in turn, define everything that follows.

“For the African Championships, we want everyone to be involved,” Theetso said. “This bid was won by Batswana for Botswana.”

It is a statement of intent as much as a description of process – a signal that the BAA regards the championships not as an event belonging to the athletics association alone, but as a national project with national ownership. The posture is deliberate, and it is also strategic.

The weight of a benchmark

Botswana does not arrive at this moment untested. The country’s recent staging of the Debswana World Athletics Relays thrust it into the global athletics spotlight and, by Theetso’s own reckoning, supplied an invaluable reference point for the task ahead. The experience, he believes, is an asset. It is also, inescapably, a measuring stick.

“I think the World Relays will always be used as a baseline,” Theetso said. “But if you look at the stature of the World Relays versus the African Senior Championships, one is a global stage while the other is continental.”

The distinction matters, but Theetso is careful not to let it become an excuse. The difference in stature, he insists, is not a licence to lower the bar. The qualification requirements and competitive conditions of the two events will differ – that much is a matter of fact – yet he argues that Botswana must still deliver a championship worthy of the reputation it has only just earned. The association, he said, would not “drop the ball” simply because its next assignment carries a continental rather than a global billing.

If anything, the success of the Relays has sharpened the challenge. Expectations among Batswana have risen, and with them the pressure on organisers to produce an event that feels like a continuation of the country’s rise rather than a step down from it.

Assembling the people, and the money

Composing the organising committee will be a test of judgement. Theetso stressed that the BAA must be exacting in whom it recruits, seeking out individuals with the specific expertise and experience to deliver the championship’s many moving parts – logistics, operations, competition, hospitality and the rest.

The skeletal secretariat, meanwhile, will shoulder a responsibility that is less visible but no less decisive: money. Its mandate will include the aggressive pursuit of sponsors and commercial partners, a task Theetso acknowledges is unavoidable. An event of this magnitude, he conceded, cannot be staged on goodwill alone; it demands significant financial resources, and securing them early will be among the secretariat’s first and most pressing duties.

A year that raises the stakes

What gives the 2028 championships an additional charge is their timing. They will unfold in a year crowded with consequence on the international athletics calendar; one that will also feature the Los Angeles Olympic Games and the World Athletics Ultimate Championship.

That convergence transforms the event from a contest for continental medals and titles into something more. For many athletes, the African Senior Championships could become a crucial qualification window – a chance to chase the standards and sharpen the form required for the sport’s biggest stages. Theetso believes this layered significance makes the championships more important still, for Botswana’s own athletes and for the visitors who will travel to compete.

For now, the sequence is clear. The Palapye OGM will map out the committee’s structure. Attention will then turn to building the secretariat, courting funders and sponsors, finalising logistics and ensuring the country is ready to receive the continent’s athletics elite.

After the Relays, expectations are high. Botswana set that bar itself. Now it must clear it again.

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