Botswana’s six young Olympians head to Senegal seeking the country’s first Youth Olympic medal since Baboloki Thebe and Karabo Sibanda won silver in 2014.
BONGANI MALUNGA
Botswana has named six athletes for the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, hoping to win its first medal since sprinters Baboloki Thebe and Karabo Sibanda took silver at Nanjing 2014.
The Games run from 31 October to 13 November in Senegal, marking the first Olympic sporting event staged on African soil.
The Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) selected four female and two male athletes across athletics, boxing, judo and swimming. Veteran sprinter Isaac Makwala will guide the athletics pair.
Six Contenders
Geza Reinious will run the 400m, with BNOC listing his personal best at 50.06 seconds. The Jwaneng Athletics Club runner also represents Lobatse Senior Secondary School and has five years of competitive experience.
Joining him is 800m runner Mpho Maano, whose personal best stands at 2:36.63. She competes for Bobirwa Athletics Club and represents Kopong Junior Secondary School, according to her BNOC profile.
Boxer Precious Masaba will contest the 51kg division with an African Youth Games bronze medal to her name. She won gold at the 2026 Botswana Boxing Association Under-19 National Championship, collecting Best Boxer and Best Bout honours.
Judo And Swimming
Theresa Tagarira will contest the 44kg judo category. She won cadet gold at January’s Presidential Judo Championship and reached a bronze-medal contest at the AUSC Region 5 Games in Namibia. Melodi Saleshando and Tema Modirelabangwe represent Botswana in swimming.
Saleshando, Botswana’s 2026 Junior Female Sportsperson of the Year, will swim the 50m freestyle. BNOC credits her with eight national age-group records in the 15–16 category, as well as one silver and two bronze medals won in Luanda, Angola.
Modirelabangwe will swim the 50m butterfly, in which he won bronze at the Africa Aquatics Zone IV Championships in Gaborone. He has also competed in relay events at the African Youth Games and African Aquatics Championships.
The remaining coaches are Kemoitsholetse David in boxing, Thato Lebang in judo and Solomon Mpusetsang in swimming.
Silver Benchmark
Botswana’s strongest Youth Olympic performance remains Nanjing 2014, when Thebe won boys’ 200m silver and Sibanda took silver in the boys’ 400m.
Those remain Botswana’s only Youth Olympic medals. The country finished without a medal at Singapore 2010 or Buenos Aires 2018, leaving its record at two athletics silvers.
Dakar’s squad doubles the three athletes sent to Buenos Aires, where Botswana competed only in athletics and swimming. The 2026 Games will be the first Summer Youth Olympics since 2018, following the postponement of the planned 2022 edition amid the COVID-19 pandemic.