MASERU – The Lesotho taekwondo team’s dreams to participate at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan were dashed during the weekend when three members of the squad lost their opening matches at the Taekwondo Olympic Qualifiers currently underway in Rabat, Morocco.
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Feb. 27, 2020
TEBOHO JAFETA
2 min read
Taekwondo team Olympics’ dreams dashed
The Lesotho squad competing at the qualifiers comprises four players and two coaches. The coaches include Liau Molikoe who is locally based and Markus Kohloffel from Germany. Only Michelle Tau, Rethabile Tjotjo and Marumo Moloisane competed at the games while Ramosue Nkuebe was unable to participate because he failed to register on time.
Tau competed in the 49kg weight division while Tjotjo fought in the 57kg weight class in the women’s category. Their male counterpart Moloisane fought in the 58kg weight class. Nkuebe was supposed to have competed in the 68kg weight division. Tau lost 7-9 to Ngone Fall of Senegal in quarterfinals while Tjotjo lost 0-24 to Nesrine Ayari of Tunisia.
Moloisane went down 5-8 against Ahmed Mohamed Osman of Sudan. The Lesotho Taekwondo Association (LTA) public relations officer Sek’hok’he Molikoe said the competition was an elimination type of contest in which if a player loses their first match, they fail to proceed to the next stage of the tournament.
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“This is an elimination type of competition, if players lose their first match, they are no longer in the tournament, so that basically means our players have dropped out of the games,” Molikoe also said. He said unfortunately this is the only taekwondo Olympics qualifiers tournament that gives African players the chance to qualify for Olympics.
This year’s edition of the Olympics Games will be held in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo in July. The games which will last for 17 days will end sometime in August.
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