adminMbachi Mutukula-Maregere Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Gymnastics vice-president, Chris Muchatuta, says five countries have confirmed their participation in the Zone VI gymnastics championships to be held at Belvedere Technical Teachers College gymnasium in Harare next month.
Angola, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Lesotho and hosts Zimbabwe have confirmed their participation while Mozambique have said they are no longer taking part in this year’s event.
The event is expected to have 243 participating athletes and is going to run for three days and will start on December 11.
“The preparations are going on well, we have five countries who confirmed their participation, plus us, so in total it will be six teams competing.
“Mozambique are no longer coming, the competition will be high but we are doing our best to get ready so that we can do well, we train four days a week.
“We had South African experts for some time who were helping the women’s teams with the training but they left yesterday and I believe the teams learnt a lot from them,” said Muchatuta.
Tichaona Gwenzi is currently the top gymnast in the senior tumbling and will be competing again this year.
Ronald Bicycle is another talented gymnast in artistic.
The Zimbabwe women seniors section has the likes of rhythmic gymnast Songwiwe Mpofu while Albertina Mashoko and Rebekah Roberts are the other good gymnasts.
There will be a number of disciplines on show too — the rhythmic section with gymnasts maneuvering balls, hoops, clubs and ribbons in sync with music.
In the trampoline events competitors will be performing pike, tuck or straddle positions, somersaults and twists reaching up to 10m.
Gymnasts competing in the tumbling events will perform eight-skill sequences of twisting somersaults, handsprings and whips with only their feet and hands touching the track.
The aerobics competitors will be performing complex and high-intensity movement patterns to music.
The men’s tumbling team won their event in the 2010 Zone VI competition in Harare.
The following year in Pretoria, the Junior Aerobics team won a gold medal while Kudzi Nyazvigo won eight gold medals and the overall Senior Men’s title.
Last year, in Namibia, Tichaona Gwenzi won the senior tumbling competition.
This is the biggest gymnastics competition in Southern Africa this year and winners will qualify for the Africa Championships next year which will be held in two sections, one in Pretoria and the other in Cairo.
Online Reporter