Moorosi Tsiane
The Lesotho Taekwondo Association (LTA) president, Moshoeshoe Mokake, has blamed lack of funding for the poor preparations of the team set to represent the country at next month’s 6th Commonwealth Taekwondo Championship and 1st Commonwealth Para-Taekwondo Championship.
Mokake said the LTA held a tournament at Lehakoe Recreational Club on Saturday last week to select the squad for the two championships scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland, from 15-16 November.
“More than 40 players attended last week’s tournament, and we need to select a team of seven for the championship. We were supposed to assemble a team of at least 16 members but due to lack of funding, we are being forced to sacrifice other players and the technical staff.
“We are still in the process of selecting the team and it is very challenging because we have to host many tournaments in order to select the best possible squad capable of raising the country’s flag high in Glasgow.
“However, funding is our biggest challenge at the moment, hence we have been forced to trim our team to just seven players,” Mokake said.
“It is always an advantage to take a huge pool of players to international competitions because this increases your chances of winning medals. But for us, due to funding issues, this is not possible, and there is nothing we can do about it.”
Mokake further revealed because of funding problems, the association had decided not to take para-athletes and cadets, to the tournament.
“Because of this financial challenge, we have also been forced to leave our para-athletes and cadets. Again, due to the same issue, we would have to take two coaches, at most, to the tournament.”
Mokake also said the LTA would be holding its final selection tournament later this month.
“We will host another tournament before the end of this month where we will be selecting the final team.”
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