Big Team Zim for Rio

Collin Matiza, Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE are looking at sending one of their biggest contingents for the Summer Olympic Games when they take part in the global sporting showcase in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next year.

According to Anna Mguni, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee chief executive, qualification by athletes and team sports for the 2016 Rio Games, which have been slated to run from August 5 to 21 in Brazil, is underway with the current projected total team size sitting at 32.

Already four athletes – swimmer Kirsty Coventry, men’s marathon runner Wirimayi Juwawo and two rowers Micheen Thornycroft and Peter Purcell-Gilpin –  have qualified for the Games.

They will be joined in the South American country by the women’s senior soccer team – the Mighty Warriors – who in October this year wrote their own piece of history when they became the first football side to qualify for the Olympic Games since Zimbabwe first took part at the world’s biggest sporting extravaganza soon after the attainment of Independence in April 1980.

In fact, with their qualification, the Mighty Warriors became the first football team to qualify for a global football tournament and the first sport team from Zimbabwe to take part at the Olympics by virtue of qualifying.

The women’s hockey side, who took part at the 1980 Games, had until the arrival of the Mighty Warriors on the Games stage been the only team sport at the showcase.

Unlike the Mighty Warriros, the “Golden Girls” of hockey did not actually qualify for the 1980 Moscow Games but received a special invitation to play there after most countries boycotted those Games. The Moscow Games didn’t go as planned when dozens of countries boycotted them in protest of the then Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Usually a football squad for any international assignment consists of 22 players (18 of which will make the team of the day) and about seven members of their technical team who include the head coach, assistant coach, goalkeepers’ coach, team manager, team doctor, physiotherapist and a kit manager.

And this means 26 athletes – Coventry, Juwawo, Thornycroft, Purcell-Gilpin and the 22 players from the Mighty Warriors – have already booked their tickets to the 2016 Rio Games in Brazil.

They are all likely to be joined there by their managers and coaches, bringing the total number of members of Team Zimbabwe to more than 30 and this will be one of the biggest contingents that will represent the country at the Summer Olympic Games since Zimbabwe’s debut appearance at the Olympics as an independent country at the 1980 Moscow Games in Russia (formerly Soviet Union).

Although the Mighty Warriors qualified for the Rio Games under the auspices of ZIFA, they now become part of Team Zimbabwe, which will be under ZOC, as the country’s Olympic body, when they travel to Brazil.

At the 1980 Moscow Games, Zimbabwe was represented by 42 athletes and they included the women’s hockey team – the “Golden Girls” – who did themselves and the newly-independent country proud by winning a gold medal at these Games.

Four years later, Zimbabwe sent 15 athletes at the next Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles, United States, before 29  athletes were picked for the 1988 showcase in Seoul, Korea, and this became the largest number of sportsmen and women from this country to compete at these Games so far.

In fact, there were 19 athletes at the 1992 Barcelona Games in Spain, 13 at the 1996 Atlanta Games in the United States, 16 at the 2000 Sydney Games in Australia, 12 at the 2004 Athens Games in Greece, 13 at the 2008 Beijing Games in China and seven at the 2012 London Games in England.

The team of seven athletes for the 2012 London Games was the smallest that Zimbabwe sent to the Summer Olympic Games since 1980 but the number is set to improve significantly, thanks to the recent qualification for the 2016 Rio Games by the Mighty Warriors.

The Zimbabwe Sevens rugby sides in both the men’s and women’s categories still stand a chance of making it to the Rio Games despite losing in the Africa Cup that was being used as the main qualifier on the continent.

Since the Cheetahs of Zimbabwe failed to qualify through the regional tournament but achieved a top three placing in South Africa last weekend, they will next year participate in the Olympic qualifier play-offs – whose dates are to be announced – where the winners of the two-day tournament will earn the only ticket to the Rio Games.

Sixteen regional teams will take part at the final qualifying tournament as Africa and Asia will each have three teams, Europe (four), North America and the Caribbean (two teams), Oceania (two teams), and South America (two teams).