Athletics championships kick off

Phineas Mukwazo in DURBAN, South Africa
THE five-day CAA African Athletics Senior Championships get underway in the coastal city of Durban this morning with 14 Zimbabweans expected to take part on Day One of the biennial track and field spectacle.

Keegan Cook will be the first to take to the track when he opens his account in the 100M dash of the gruelling decathlon event at 9AM. Cook will also take part in the long and high jump of the same event on the same day.

Yvonne Thomas and Sukoluhle Mlalazi will compete in the first round of the women’s 100M this morning.

United States-based sprint kingpin Gabriel Mvumvure, Ngoni Makusha, and Shingirai Hlungwayo will be in action in the first round of the men’s 100M dash.

In the afternoon, 400M hurdler Roy Zakaria will take part in the first round of the same event, while Tsitsi Mahachi, who arrived yesterday evening, will participate in the first round of the women’s 400M, before Conias Mudzingwa, Nigel Tom and Gift Ngwenya also take to the track in same distance for men.

Alice Maudze will be the only Zimbabwean female runner in the first round of the 100M hurdles, while Jacob Mugomeri will take part in the only final of the day, the men’s 10,000M.

Meanwhile, four Zimbabwean athletes Maryjoy Mudyiravanji, Canisius Wenjere, Bekisisa Tshuma and Sydney Nyoni are yet to arrive here after their travel was affected by the violence in Pretoria on their way to Johannesburg en route to Durban.