All roads lead to White City Stadium

Lovemore Dube

THE Zimbabwe national athletics championship sponsored by Costa Takawira’s Balmin Holdings takes place in Bulawayo on Saturday. White City will be the venue for the event and the added attraction is that athletes will participate in an event with a functional electronic timer.

An expert has been brought from South Africa and is expected to start work today to ensure the gadget is working.
It is not an ordinary athletics event. There is so much at stake according to the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) boss, Tendai Tagara.

The team to represent Zimbabwe at the African Senior Championships in Doula, Cameroon will be finalised after the event. A squad comprising of local based athletes and those mostly in the US will be selected.

The African Championships represent the last qualifying window for those intending to be part of Team Zimbabwe at the Paris Olympics next month.

A number of Zimbabwe sprinters are not far from qualifying and may find Doula, Cameroon the best and last hurdle to their dreams. The qualifying window for athletics closes on June 30.

“The event will see Naaz announcing its final team for the African Senior Championships in Cameroon from 21-26 June. Some outstanding performers will be picked for Cameroon in competition with other athletes based outside Zimbabwe. The 100-200m events are highly contested since US guys are ready to join the squad since their athletics season is over,” said Tagara on Tuesday night.

He said those who have qualified or are very close to, will be sent.”To Cameroon, we want to send mainly those who have either qualified for the Olympics or 99% close to. Again, we are chasing the remaining Olympic relay slots,” said Tagara.

Already qualified on the track for the Olympics are sprinters Makanakaishe Charamba with a time of 19.95 seconds and record holder Tapiwanashe Makarawu whose 19.93 stands as the national record. Makarawu is 0.14 seconds away from the 100m qualifying time.

There is a host of other sprinters within earshot of sub-10-second legs of the 4x100m like Clifton Muunga.
Tagara said since this is an important meeting in the history of any athlete, Naaz will allow those who can afford to travel at their own expense a chance to bid to be in the Olympic team.

“We are open to those who can afford their own air tickets from their own sponsors and the association will cover food and accommodation. Some juniors have shown interest in having sponsors for tickets,” said Tagara who is obviously enjoying the evolution to a notable competitor on the international scene of his athletes with Charamba and Makarawu in the top eight of the 200m.

He said to make Saturday’s meeting more attractive they have hired an expert on the electronic timer from South Africa. “To make it more, we have hired a time-tronic expert from South Africa to help operate the timer after buying a new camera from Belgium,” said Tagara.

The expert is expected to start work today at White City. Tagara took time to thank former sprinter Takawira for coming on board to sponsor the national championships.