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TODAY marks the first cross country event on the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe calendar that will be hosted by the Bulawayo Athletics Board at Mpopoma Park this morning.BAB chairman Manuel Mpofu expressed optimism ahead of today’s event as it will also be used as a selection event for the national championship next month.
“This is our first event on the athletics calendar and we are hoping that athletes will come in their numbers as this is also a selection process for athletes who will excel as they will represent us at the national event,” he said.
Mpofu said BAB was geared for the year but expressed concern on the dwindling number of female athletes, a trend which he said was “worrisome”.
However, Mpofu said BAB would embark on an extensive exercise that would result in the increase of female participation.
“The number of senior female athletes has immensely gone down in Bulawayo and this development can be attributed to archaic factors that determine that a woman’s role is in the kitchen,” said Mpofu.
“The workshops that we held last year featured a high number of female participants hence we are on the right direction as a board because if we have more female coaches and officials they can draw female athletes to participate in events.”
He said as BAB they had decided to have a large number of junior female athletes as a strategy to arrest the issue, so that by the time girls graduated into the senior women’s team, the numbers would be adequate to build a complete team.
“We want to counter this by having a lot of female junior athletes so that even if some are to leave athletics we will still manage to have a meaningful number that graduates into the senior women’s team,” said Mpofu.
Today’s competition will feature the under-16 boys in the 6km race with the girls competing in the 4km race. The under-18 boys will compete in the 8km run alongside the under-18 and under-20 girls.
The senior men and women will battle it out in the 12km and 8km races respectively.
“Athletes will be drawn from all sectors in the city. We are expecting representation from ZRP, high schools and athletic clubs today and Patience Gurure will be part of the contingent as she has been representing Bulawayo well on the national arena,” said Mpofu.
Competitions will continue being hosted by provinces with the national cross country championship pencilled for 14 February at Kadoma Sports Club and this will be followed by the NAAZ track and field championship to be held at White City Stadium on 21 February.
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