"waheguruji ka khalsa and waheguruji ki fateh"

About Sports

By SS Gill

Doing sports is the far most accepted way to keep you healthy .  Sports give you physical and psychological benefits and keeps you fitter & in peace.

When I came to Botswana in July 1988, I saw these sports known as Vaisakhi sports, for the first time in April 1989 and I took an active part in organising and participating in these sports. Later many other community members joined me in organising these sport. We have been including a variety of events in these sports every year. Just to mention a few of them , more popular are ---Athletics, Tug of war, volleyball, cricket, races, musical chair for ladies, couple race, shot put throw, discus throw and many more sporting events for children. So far we have been organising these sports in the grounds of Ikakeng Primary School next to our Gurudwara Sahib. Apart from regular members of Gurudwara Sangat many other members of different communities come and participate in these sports activities as well. 

I have attended all these sports so far and I am really happy and grateful to all the presidents and committees of Gurudwara Sahib for keeping the sports alive. My special thanks and credit go to the management committee for organising these sports on a high level in 1999 and 2008.  In 1999 we were celebrating 300 years of Khalsa and 2008 we were celebrating 20 years of establishment of our Gurudwara Sahib  and we added some big events to our Vaisakhi sports. These were 10 km X-country race, where we invited even local athletes to join us and big prizes were awarded through Mrs  Jertby (Chairperson of Botswana sports Council ). I can still remember that at the time of start, S. Gurnam Singh Virdee (an 80 years old person of our community) was standing on the starting line and he ran for some distance. Another sport included that year was Track events organised in National Stadium in the evening in a very strong flood light and big prizes were given there to the winners. Athletes from UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA and other parts of the country took part in these races on the track.

Ever since the X-country became very popular part of our Vaisakhi sports. This year it was our 14th X country race. All people, young and old, come in large numbers to participate in this event, a distance of nearly 4 km which starts and finishes in front of our Gurudwara Sahib. In 2008 was our 10th X-Country race, in which we invited many local X-country champions and honourable minister Mr Pheto from Molepolole gave away the prizes. We organised X-Country race on Kgale Hill 3 times   and in one of the years, nearly 100 participants climbed that steep hill. To the surprise of everybody, late Bibi Kulwant Kaur Delhi wale climbed that hill when she was 80 years plus. She had been taking part in such events almost every year. That year, Pahul Singh Virdee was the youngest person to reach on the top. He was only a few months old at that time and ofcourse he was carried up by the family members. Otherwise every year, children of 4-5 years take part in our X-Country race and complete it without any problem.

My sincere thanks to all community members, individuals  and to senior citizens or master sports persons to come and complete the race along with our youngsters.

 Another event we organised was PENTATHLON where each athlete takes part in 5 events. It was organised in Maru-a-pula School. Last but not least I feel very happy that in our small community we have some sports people who can be the source of inspiration for us and, our youngsters. Finally, we are proud of Mr. Inderjit Singh Bhinder, Mr.Baldeep Singh Gill and Master Amandeep Singh Nagi who won the positions or medals in the National sports of Botswana as per my information.