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Humans of Shuttle Time: Lerato Lepheane

TEXT BY BWF STAFF

This is the 45th story in our Humans of Shuttle Time series, in which we present the perspectives of those who are involved with badminton at the grassroots level. Lerato Lepheane, Shuttle Time Tutor with Lesotho Badminton Association, talks about his initiation into badminton and the challenges of spreading the sport in his country.

Childhood Days

I’m the eldest of three boys, and was raised by a single parent. Growing up, I was always entrusted with looking after my brothers. I guess I was deputy parent of some sort. One way to cope with this task was to take them along to the youth centre, where kids enjoyed playing different sports. As a result, my childhood was fun, active and free because the only time I could arrive home past sunset was when I was returning from the soccer field or gym. This instilled a sense of responsibility in me.

Lerato Lepheane conducting a Shuttle Time session

Early Experiences

In my community was this Youth Centre, the Don Bosco Oratory, an initiative in the city of Maputsoe in Leribe. Kids were going there on a daily basis. I cannot pinpoint exactly when I saw badminton but it was one of the sports I tried early in life.

I was juggling between badminton and swimming. This continued for five years. I joined a swimming club in Fickburg (town in south Africa adjacent to my home). Then I shifted from swimming to volleyball and this meant my time was divided between volleyball and badminton. I loved spiking but often my shot would be stuck at the net so I had to leave this too. Thus, when now I focused on badminton alone.

Memorable Events

Winning the Most Promising Player award in 2013 in Botswana during the BOLESWA (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) intervarsity game. I had lost my semifinal to their Commonwealth player Tawana Gawne. I vowed to go back home and improve my badminton. There was one person who motivated me more to go work hard both as an athlete and to grow badminton in my country, and that was “Dungoos”, as he was called (Thuso Mudongo). He kept in touch with our team and motivated us to form a national association.

Developing Badminton in the Community

I would say it still a work in progress. We have dreamed and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. With every year that passes we see a number of opportunities to explore. It hasn’t been a simple task at all. There are a lot of obstacles — for example, culturally Lesotho as much as Africa is not a sport-loving continent. In Lesotho we still regard sport as largely recreational. We do not have any university offering Physical Education. This is a huge gap and brings about a lot of difficulties to convince individuals, schools and sponsors. Moreover, badminton is an indoor sport so facilities are not up to standard.

Impact of Shuttle Time

It is the best model to reach multitudes to make the sport popular and fun, teaching everyone in a relaxed and fun manner. It has helped us reach more pupils than was considered possible.

Fun wins the heart, passion is energy and nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. So when you have the passion for something you tend not only to be better at it, but you work harder at it too.

Previous Stories in This Series

Humans of Shuttle Time: Genelyn Lansangan

Humans of Shuttle Time: Paulo Jerome Niniano Quidato

Humans of Shuttle Time: Josefa Matasau

Humans of Shuttle Time: Richard Gregory Wong

Humans of Shuttle Time: Alessandro Redaelli

Humans of Shuttle Time: Veronika Protassova

Humans of Shuttle Time: Robbert De Keijzer

Humans of Shuttle Time: Carolina M Vaughn

Humans of Shuttle Time: Sam Paterson

Humans of Shuttle Time: Deki Tshomo

Humans of Shuttle Time: Hadeel Mohammad Alomari