Basketball team to go into camp

By Paul Munyuki
THE Zimbabwe women’s basketball team is set to go into a fitness camp this weekend as they begin preparations for the All-Africa Games finals set for Mozambique in September.
Zimbabwe became the first team to qualify for the All-Africa Games after they finished second at the qualifiers that were held in South Africa at Tukkies University.
Zimbabwe qualified on the basis that Mozambique, who won the tournament, had an automatic place already at the Games as they are the hosts.
Having also received a wildcard at the 9th All-Africa Games that were hosted by Algeria, this will be the second appearance for the local side.
But with seven months to go before the 2011 Games, Zimbabwe have already started preparing for the event with assistant coach Simon Lawson expected to work with fitness trainer Anton Fransch.
The camps will be held in three regions — Harare, Bulawayo and South Africa — and will see each of the players getting a special individual programme to work on during the off-camp days.
With a number of players plying their trade in South Africa, the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe saw it fit to have coach Ronald Garura taking care of the players in that country.
Five players — Rachel Makoni, Charity Chigumba, Margaret Magwaro, Isabel Tegunde and Shingi Mangoma — are all based in South Africa.
The first camp set for Harare is divided into two groups where the first lot has been set to train on Friday with the second group coming in on Sunday.
“Coach Garura will be in South Africa taking care of the players there and at the moment players in Bulawayo are training under Kings’ official Ntokozani Sigola who is also the national team assistant coach.
“I will be taking care of the players in Harare with the help of other coaches in the province but will also travel to Bulawayo with Fransch to have the tests on the players there,” said Lawson.
“The main aim of this fitness assessment programme is that we identified the weaknesses and strength of each of the players so that they get an individual programme to work on.”
BUZ president Addison Chiware also indicated that they were planing to have international friendlies as part of their seven-month programme running from this weekend until September.
“Though we are awaiting the draw, in mind we have teams in the region like Botswana, and we are also targeting Kenya and the DRC.
“But the coach has indicated that he also wants to play Botswana because there are some elements of the game that he needs to test his side against Botswana.
“We might also play South Africa but that is if they do not get a wildcard to play at the All-Africa Games because they did not qualify for the tournament,” said Chiware.