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Sikhumbuzo Moyo in Hwange
BULAWAYO province are the 2017 Zimbabwe National Youth Games Under-18 champions after amassing 33 gold medals in the games that ended in Hwange yesterday.
Zimbabwe Tertiary Institutions Sports Union (ZTISU) emerged winners in the Under-23 age group with 16 gold medals while the open category kings are the Zimbabwe Republic Police having scooped nine gold medals.
Hosts province Matabeleland North came eighth with two gold medals in the younger age group but came a commendable third in the Under-23 age group with 16 gold medals in an age group that saw Bulawayo settling for eighth position with two gold medals
On second position in the Under-18 category was Harare who collected 20 gold medals to relegate 2018 hosts Midlands to third who managed 13 gold medals.
Mashonaland Central, Vocational institutions, Mashonaland East, Agricultural institutions, Air force of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe National Army went back home without any gold medals.
Speaking at the prize giving ceremony at the Colliery Stadium yesterday, the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Makhosini Hlongwane said it was pleasing to note that the Youth Games policy was emerging as lucid proof of the feasibility of the Community Sport and Recreation Club System.
“We are witnesses of a game changing paradigm paving the path for Zimbabwe to have a mini Olympic competition edifice. As we tie the final knot of the inaugural edition of the revised Zimbabwe National Youth Games we can safely assert that early policy promulgations for en masse participation in sport and recreation were never radical imaginations,” said Minister Hlongwane, the brain child behind the revised Games that saw an increase in sport codes from the generic eight to 22 as well as the coming in of additional provinces.
“The same policy proposition were scientific mitigations of the problem solution gap to the erstwhile disenfranchisement of the sport and recreation sector. The reform of the Zimbabwe National Youth Games structure is pertinently aligned to the Government’s unequivocal attentiveness to make sporting activities accessible to all citizens in a bid to dismantle the residues of a colonial past which narrowed sport and recreation to be preserve of the minority,” said Minister Hlongwane.
Minister Hlongwane said the makeover of Youth Games has conceived a horizontal development of the supreme national sport and recreation competition platform.
“The revised approach to the Youth Games has paved the path for the inclusion of communities in the competition structure and the additional provinces,” said Minister Hlongwane.
Online Reporter