Athletics team efforts derailed

Sports Reporter
THE athletics team’s hopes of picking medals at the African Games suffered a setback after two of their hopefuls Tatenda Tsumba and Dickson Kamungeremu picked injuries.

The competition got underway on Monday.

Tsumba had to miss the 100m race after a hamstring injury in his last competition in Belgium where he was preparing for the African Games. Kamungeremu, who had a good start in the heats when he came second in 10.46seconds to qualify for the semi-finals, could not finish the race after also picking an injury.

Coach Lisimati Phakamile said they had to rest the two athletes who are key members of the 4x100m relay team.

“We had a number of setbacks as we received Tsumba coming in from Belgium, from his last race where he picked up a slight injury on his left hamstring.

“We had to take precautionary measures and ask the physiotherapists and team doctor to attend to him who then also advised us to give him a little bit of rest and monitor it over a period of 48hours.

“We rested him for the 100m and we also rested him for the 4x100m semi-final which will be run today (yesterday), this evening.

“Dickson Kamungeremu also did very well in his first heat in 100m where he managed to qualify in position two in a personal best time of 10.46seonds sailing through to the semi-final. “Unfortunately, in the 100m where he was in heat two he picked up a calf strain midway through the race.