Staff reporter
Lesotho Table Tennis Association (LeTTA) top players who recently represented the country at the Bloemfontein Open Tournament failed to impress.
The tournament that was hosted by the Free State Table Tennis Federation in South Africa (SA) under the South African Table Tennis board took place over the weekend.
The local players lost all their games and failed to break into the group stages.
Head coach of the team, Aupa Rasemeli, expressed his disappointment with the team’s performance, and indicated that although the players put out an unimpressive shown, he lauded the players for playing their hearts out.
“We did not perform well and did not make it to the quarter finals, I am disappointed by the results not the performance,†Rasemeli said.
The team was made of up of twins Likhetho and Khethang Mothibi as the two males while the female category was represented by Thato Mathibeli and Reaboka Bofelo.
“Some of the players only received their Covid-19 vaccine just as we were about to start trainings hence we could not go really hard with intensive training,†he said.
The purpose of the tournament was to activate and raise the players’ competition spirit to international standards and to present an opportunity for them to advance their profiles in the continental African Table Tennis Federation.
Another aspiration was for the Lesotho National Olympics Committee (LNOC) to then review the players’ profiles to book their seats at the Commonwealth Games or have them represent the country at the international level competitions for their active national exposure.
Rasemeli said as preparation for future tournaments they will need to have enough time and resources to prepare the players technically and mentally.
“Going forward I think we shall have to conduct intense training and our National Executive Committee (NEC) has to see to it that they buy bets of good quality because things keep on improving,†he said.
LeTTA promotes and develops table tennis in Lesotho. It has competed in the National Championships in several parts of SA, taken part in Botswana Table Tennis Championship and Table Tennis Senior Championships in Senegal and Mauritius in recent years.