Wrestling club unveiled in Maseru

NTHAKO MAJORO

MASERU – Maseru has its own wrestling club named The Game Changers and an organisation to govern this new sporting code in the country, Wrestling Association of Lesotho, has since been established. Wrestling is one of the world’s most popular sports contested at the Olympics every four years, with participants from all over the world. The Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC)’s new Public Relations Officer, Fetang Selialia, confirmed that there’s a new wrestling association which he said had already been accepted as new members of the LNOC.

“There is indeed a new wrestling association which had just been given a provisional membership,” said Selialia in an exclusive interview with Public Eye. The captain of the new wrestling club, Mafa Teleki, said The Game Changers started as a fitness club called Tenacious Eagles. “This club was initially called Tenacious Eagles. It started as a fitness club but we also did some other activities like modelling at weddings, amongst others,” said Teleki.

“But we have since changed the name to The Game Changers after we formed this new wrestling club.” Teleki, 23, said currently the club had 14 members, all of whom are male. “We are a team of 14 wrestlers currently training on our own while waiting for an expert coach.” Teleki and his teammates have played different sporting codes before. “I was a football player before, playing for a C-Division club based in Lereng and at high school.

“Some of the players here also played football before and others were taekwondo players.” Teleki further said: “But now we are serious with wrestling and we are hoping that we will get all the support we need going forward.” The Game Changers wrestlers, Teleki said, were looking forward to representing Lesotho at international level in wrestling in the near future. “We want to compete at an international level, representing our country among others in the Olympics and win medals.”

Teleki said they hoped things would be smooth for them now that they have registered with the LNOC. The Game Changers wrestlers were motivated by Selialia, who is also the President of the Federation of Rugby Lesotho (FLR), to start a wrestling club. “We met with Selialia who after he realised our fitness level asked us to start a wrestling club.”

Selialia, on the other hand, said he realised the potential of this group of young men, even though none of them ever played wrestling before. “Even if most of them are still young, I could see their potential in wrestling hence why I encouraged them to start a wrestling club.” This is the first ever wrestling club in the history of Lesotho.