"Mamaroala Tjoka and Mabuthile Lebopo - both from Lesotho - on Sunday claimed top honours in the women's and men's sections of the Soweto Marathon.
It was smart running on the part of the winners that eventually saw them break the ribbon some time ahead of their competitors. For both, it was their second victory in the race - Lebopo was the 2004 champion while Tjoka won last year......" reports Nazli Thomas on www.iol.co.za of Nov 06, 2006
7 comments:
Now, this is something to lift our dampened spirits. Mamaroala and Mabuthile have really made us proud. Even more, this performance was not a fluke for either of them as both have won the same race before. I really wish all Basotho could take a leaf out of this one...boikitlaetso. Boikitlaetso. Lesotho has many talented road runners. From time to time our brothers and sisters excel in races held across South Africa. They really need to be encouraged. Maybe we should adopt road running as a national sport, at last we seem to have found something we are good at.
Thabiso Moqhali is another accomplished road runner. He won gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games held in Malaysia. It was really unfortunate that he could not receive a hero's welcome, which he truly deserved. Instead SANDF and BDF stole the limelight from the man and became national heroes by invading Lesotho, storming the Palace and killing innocent LDF soldiers at Katse. All this happened the day before he arrived back in the country from Malaysia.
After my earlier article, i decided to research a bit more about our runners, specifically Thabiso Moqhali. This guy is much bigger than i originally thought. He has been winning marathons across the globe over the past 7 or 8 years. I have decided to include below an extract from AIMS Newsletter of May 2000.
"Commonwealth champion Thabiso Moqhali inflicted a rare reversal on the Kenyan running machine when he won the Belgrade Marathon in a torrid 27C writes Pat Butcher. To make matters worse for the dozen or so Kenyans competing in the Yugoslav capital Moqhali's compatriot Percy Sephooa finished second, making Lesotho, a mountain kingdom of two million inhabitants in southern Africa arguably the best marathon nation per capita in the world. The Kenyans slipped off the winner's rostrum, since third place was taken by Lawrence Peu of South Africa, the neighbouring nation which entirely surrounds Lesotho. Jimmy Muindi led a posse of Kenyans home in fourth place.
Moqhali was always the one forcing the pace in a large group of Africans, which had dwindled to three after 35km. A feature of the Belgrade race is the 'Phillipides Gate' at 36km, in memory of the Greek soldier whose historic run from the battlefield at Marathon to Athens gave birth to the marathon race. First runner through the gate gets $1000, and Moqhali's sprint not only won him the 'prime', it took him away from Sephooa and Peu and on his way to the $15,000 first prize. Sephooa (2nd) won $8000 and Peu (3rd) $6000.
The Belgrade race re-established itself after the NATO bombardment last year, but high pressure of a sort prevailed and the hot weather prevented fast times.
Moqhali, surprise winner of the Commonwealth race two years ago, has already qualified for the Sydney Olympics but Sephooa and Peu - who trains with current Olympic champion Josia Thugwane - had their hopes of a qualifying time dashed by the conditions"
Just look at some of the big names that he has beaten..amazing stuff. I am going to seek the man, meet him in person and take a photograph with him. He is truly, a living Lesotho icon.
Nkokoto please don't leave me behind when you take a photo with Thabiso Moqhali...i know this will sound corny but as i was reading your two posts there were tears in my eyes...literally...you mean this guy has been kicking butt for the past 7 or 8 years but we don't even know him (okay i know about his achievement at the Commonwealth but that's about it) i mean talk about someone who has national pride...you know some African athletes who are not appreciated at home actually take citizenship in some Middle Eastern countries where they foqa them petro-dollars? Thabiso is still running under our flag (aka Mafifi) che ke a true patriot.
Ache i've never been so humbled...ka bo malimabe ho ho holo ke hotseba bo-Tiger Woods le bo Marion Jones...we don't even know our own home grown icons...they are simply not part of out consciousness...we would rathe debate what's happening in the Bafana Bafana camp and whether their new coach is gettin too big a pay cheque...che Nkokoto... ache ke soabile ruri.
Le Mamaroala le Mabuthile ke ile ka bala taba tsa bona koranteng fela ea fella mono. E kare haeba ke balile litaba hantle...bantse ba ikoetlisetsa hona South Africa...not long ago someone said we could build a high-altitude training facility for athletes (including soccer teams) ka-Loting for our own athletes and for those who would want to use this facility...e.g. right now 2010 is coming this facility if we had it now would already be fully booked (serious) because such facilities are in demand. what the hell are we doing right now to take advantage of this situation? i wonder if there's anything in the pipeline? the point i'm trying to make is that if we had such facilities Mamaroala and Mabuthile wouldn't have to train in RSA...because it's not just about putting on matekkie and hitting the tar...it's a highly scientific sport which needs human and financial resources (e.g. sports nutrionists)
hona sekolong mona one of my students is a teakwondo champion who apparentlyis representing us well wherever he goes...next week he'll be in Kenya...this poor boy is the most humble person, does not boast instead his classmates are the ones telling me about his achievements...not long ago he was in Europe kicking butt big time...what's gonna happen to him? he's gonna look for a job in the civil service, and have some half-assed boss telling him what to do...sabotaging his dreams and making him miserable while earning peanuts working for the nation...that's Lesotho and sports for you...look at what has happened to our soccer talent...we should be pursuing the issue of trials in overseas soccer teams e.g. Barcelona, Arsenal, FC Porto, Ajax etc...does our LEFA do that? the lucky ones ba fella Pirates kapo Bloem Celtic...is that the best we can do? incidentally someone has resigned from LEFA citing lack of support from the association...typical! we should also promote tennis (le rona re be le bo-Venus and Serena Williams oa bona?) swimming etc maybe all these unemployed youth can be saved by a well-executed national sports policy (maybe we have one i don't know)
Thope, apparently Monghali Thabiso Moqhali works for the Ministry of Sports. We can go there together on the 18/12/2006, neh!
You just gave me an idea, why don't I talk the poor guy into applying for citizenship of some obscure Arab country? Perhaps Mabuthile and 'Mamoroallo as well. Nxa! you know sometimes you get so fedup that you may start preaching blasphemy. Anyway, the truth is, we simply do not care about our own real heroes. Forget LEFA or the Sports Ministry, us normal citizens. As you said it, ntho eo re e tsebang ke Bafana Bafana, Kaizer Chiefs, Pirates this, Parreira that. I am ashamed of myself and my fellow countrymen.
At this stage, I guess the best we can do is to give these people publicity and also to document their achievements. I wouldn't mind to interview them (including your student) and post the information on the internet. What do you think?
Nkokoto excellent ideas! let's see Monghali Moqhali at the Ministry and (and perhaps make an appointment to see him then?) and i'll arrange for you to meet my student after he returns from Kenya.
We can also ask Ntate Moqhali what the ministry is doing to develop sporting talent in the country on a much bigger scale...if there's a national sports policy why is it not working? what are the obstacles? lack of funds? well why don't they solicit funds? if they are, then why aren't we getting anywhere?
Nkokoto le Thope I would like to get in and join this forum. definately we have the a talent here in lesotho, but its somehow overshadowed by some factors which are hard to explain. In the first place the country have been focusing on soccer but with little support and many of the potential career sports have been neglected. Basotho have proved to be excellent three sports to my opinion anyway. 1st the taekondo, then boxing and the talent in athletics/road runners is absolutely outstanding. I think it is the high time now enough support should be given to this guys so that they can excel and make to country proud.
this morning I was watching the final in the tennis masters cup and what came to my mind was, "if enough support had been given to the young in Lesotho there would be no difficulty in have our own Roger Federer" What I am drive to is the fact that in our country sport is not regarded as career but as place where you can be able to forget your frastrations ha tsatsi le sekama o qeta ho theola phoofo ea machaina terakeng the whole day.
There is always controvesy with the primary school sports with the curriculum centre wanting to shut down the sporting hours in place of the academics lesson. This and all the other related stories show and channel our young into the thinking that the only success in life is academics which completely wrong!!!
Khoto, i agree with you. Even though academic development is important, sport gives our youth other career options.
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