adminEllina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe director of coaching, talent identification and development, Lisimati Phkamile has commended the recent performances by some of the country’s foreign-based athletes.
The pair of Chengetayi Mapaya and Tinotenda Matiyenga had outstanding performances in the last few weeks.
Matiyenga broke Zimbabwe men’s national 200m indoor record, during the Texas Tech Invitational track and field meet at Lubbock in Texas, United States.
Triple jumper Mapaya also had a good start when he jumped 16.63 metres at the same competition.It is their encouraging performances, which are providing some hope, for the national association’s target towards qualification to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Phakamile said they were hoping they continue on that trajectory and attain the standards for the Games.
“It is actually very promising and a positive thing that we have some of our foreign-based athletes performing in their first competitions and posting very good times.
“We are hoping that they keep pushing, and hit the Olympic mark, so that we have a good number of track and field guys qualifying.
“We are actually excited and we are wishing them an injury-free season and they can also make the grade for Team Zimbabwe.
“We haven’t been having numbers, actually, on the track and field department.
In the last Rio Olympics, we had two athletes there for the track, that was (Tatenda) Tsumba and (Gabriel) Mvumvure, who were representing us. “And, in the previous Olympics again, we had a small number of track and field athletes,” said Phakamile.
Mapaya represented the country at the World Championships in 2019 and is among the hopefuls for the Olympics.
Phakamile also noted that while they are keeping their fingers crossed, for improved participation in track and field events, they were also aware of the challenges.
“This time around, I am not seeing a lot turns, or a lot of difference, looking at the athletes that we have and looking at the Covid pandemic. “The effects have been very bad, to our athletes and our preparations, looking at the guys that are local. “We are still under lockdown, up to almost two, three months before qualification and that’s very tricky.
“That makes everything tricky, for our athletes to qualify, and we begin to bank on the guys that are abroad to do the job for us.
“As Zimbabwe, we still have a chance for our track and field guys to qualify and we still hope that they will make the grade,” said Phakamile.
Other athletes they are pinning their hopes on UK-based Tatenda Tsumba, Itayi Vambe, who is now in South Africa and Ngoni Makusha. Tsumba, Vambe and Makusha, together with Dickson Kamungeremu, made the 4x100m relay team that qualified for the 2019 World Relays in Japan. And, for some time, they trained together under the guidance of coach David Tinago, with the Olympics being one of their targets.
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