Olympic committee, Sports commission join hands

Luciah Phahla
Maseru
The Lesotho National Olympics Committee (LNOC) and Lesotho Sport and Recreation Commission (LSRC) have joined forces in an effort to improve sport in the country.
The partnership was revealed at a joint press conference held at the Olympic House last Tuesday. The mother bodies said the decision to join efforts came after a review of Lesotho’s sporting environment and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will be signed on July 30 to consummate the union.
As part of the deal, the LNOC and LSRC have formed a team that will work on a number of reforms to address challenges facing local sport including the governance processes of national sporting federations starting with the Lesotho Boxing Association (LEBA) and Lesotho National Squash Association (LNSA).
General assessment of the principles of good governance across all sporting organisations in Lesotho, joint athlete development programmes and management systems will also be highlighted.
LNOC president Matlohang Moiloa-Ramoqopo said the organisations will be working together to develop athletes.
“We will address strategies and training of athletes so that they will compete at international standards when coming to Region 5 Games, All Africa Games, Commonwealth Games and the big one which is the Olympic Games,” she said.
“We want to improve the sport in the country. Instead of fighting we should be working together to attract investors.”

LRSC president Khiba Mohoanyane said the bodies have formed a joint committee tasked with ironing out issues in boxing and squash.
“We have formed a committee that is going to work together with issues regarding squash and they have been given a time frame to work on this,” he said.
Moiloa-Ramoqopo said this joint partnership will facilitate good working relations between LNOC and LSRC in order to better govern member associations.
“This will help us to have good working relations to control the associations. The members saw that (LNOC and LSRC) were not working together and when they had issues with either of us they would run to the other. But, now we are going to have strategies and we will put conditions for the members,” she said.
She continued that LNOC and LSRC are also going to form a joint commission to fight against doping in sport.