Sports fraternity mourns Quinton-Steele Botes

NAMIBIAN sports administrator and consultant Quinton-Steele Botes died in his sleep on Monday night after a long struggle with cancer.

Botes (54) was a well-known athletics coach and probably Namibia’s top sports administrator.

He was a Level 2 International Olympic Committee instructor and a course director of the IOC, conducting numerous courses in Africa.

He represented Namibia as a technical manager at the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and the All Africa Games while he also received an award for sporting excellence from the IOC.

In Namibia, he was also a motivational speaker, a radio presenter, a sports organiser, consultant and brand ambassador for various companies, including Marathon Sugar, Coca Cola, Starlite, Engen and Avis.

Botes’ son Ibarto said his father passed away peacefully in his sleep on Monday night.

“Quinton passed away in his sleep at around 22h50 yesterday.

He went to sleep yesterday afternoon after we chatted with him in the morning. He died without pain and in peace,” he said.

Botes renewed his long battle with cancer earlier this year after the bone marrow cancer, multiple myeloma, returned at the end of February and the plasma cell leukemia, five weeks ago.

His condition deteriorated rapidly over the past week and he checked in at Paramount Hospital on Saturday.

Botes had been struggling with cancer for seven years, but confounded medical experts when he survived a serious bout of cancer at the end of 2012 and made a full recovery. Since then, he continued his work as a sport consultant and administrator, while he was also a highly sought-after motivational speaker for corporate entities and to give testimony in church.

According to Ibarto, Botes was invited to testify all over Namibia and even in South Africa.

“Many churches invited him to testify in Namibia and South Africa, from Omaruru, Stampriet, Rehoboth, Khomasdal and Katutura to Cape Town and Bloemfontein. These services were normally packed with especially the rural people travelling far to come and listen to Quinton. It was always an awesome experience to listen to him and he really motivated others who were sick or who had lost loved ones, through his testimony,” he said.

Botes started the Quinton-Steele Botes Athletics Course and Training Camp in 1993 and since then it grew into Namibia’s most successful and enduring sport course. In January this year the course took place for the 21st successive year, and to celebrate the achievement, Botes held a gala dinner where he received high accolades and tributes from Namibia’s sporting and corporate fraternity.

Botes also launched the Quinton-Steele Botes Cancer Fund five years ago, which assisted more than 60 cancer patients.

Botes was the highest qualified IOC instructor in Namibia and in April this year oversaw the graduation of 11 Namibian sport administrators, who received Level One Advanced Sport Leadership and Administration course diplomas, after completing a course that was hosted by the Namibia National Olympic Committee (NNOC), sponsored by Olympic Solidarity and endorsed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The secretary general of the Namibia National Olympic Committee, Joan Smit, said Botes’ death was a great loss and that his work for the NNOC was invaluable.

“One of his biggest wishes was to complete the Advanced Sport Management Course that he conducted for Namibian sport administrators. We had to postpone the course due to his illness, but he came back to complete the course,” she said.

“We will miss him a lot, but his legacy will live on. He was the one person who had the knowledge and insight to work with athletes from grassroots level to high performance level,” she added.

One of Botes’ last assignments was when he travelled to Oshakati two weeks ago to organise the Old Mutual Victory Races and according to Smit, he was determined to go.

“When he left for the Old Mutual Victory Races in Oshakati two weeks ago he was already weak and had to receive chemotherapy and blood platelets the previous day, but he insisted on going. He told me he would go and do everything in his power to praise God through his work… he should be called Quinton-Steele Faith Botes because I have never seen a person with so much faith,” she said.

Ibarto said they had not discussed funeral arrangements yet and first needed to get all the family members back together in Windhoek. He said that Quinton’s legacy would live on.

He is survived by his wife Benita, his children Ibarto, Benton and Quinita and his grandchild Kian.

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