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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S hopes of hosting the CANA Zone IV Swimming Championships have been cut short as the event has now been moved to Angola.
The regional competition is set for April 26 to 29.
Initially, Malawi were awarded the right to host the regional event but they indicated that they had some unexpected challenges and were no longer in a position to host the competition.
Zimbabwe, who had also put in a bid to host it as well, were then approached to host the event and agreed despite the short notice.
Zimbabwe Swimming chair, Zanele Nkomazana, said they were supposed to submit the paperwork on February 22 but missed the deadline due to circumstances beyond their control and the event has been moved to Angola.
Zimbabwe had hoped to utilise the home advantage to field two teams since the hosting country is allowed to enter more athletes.
“If there is anything that I am sad for it’s for our swimmers and right now they are withdrawing those that had indicated they are interested. So they are withdrawing because we can’t afford.
“So what I am sad about is when we host we can field two teams, which is 80 swimmers. So all our 80 swimmers would have had an opportunity to swim at home and an opportunity to swim because it’s not easy to make that team.
“It’s pretty difficult to make the CANA team. So with the two teams then we were going to have more, 80 swimmers competing,” said Nkomazana.
Zone IV consists of Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Eswatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe won the championships last year in Zambia.
Meanwhile, on the local scene, the focus shifts to the upcoming Zimbabwe Junior National Championships to be staged in Harare on March 11 and 12.
The gala will be held at Chisipite Senior School. Provinces that have submitted their entries include Bulawayo, Manicaland, Matabeleland North, Mashonaland Country Districts and the hosts Harare.
Harare Amateur Swimming board member, Nikki Johnsen, said they are fielding 72 swimmers for the event that is expected to attract more than 150 swimmers.
The age-group categories range from nine-and-Under to 12-year-olds.
Most of the provinces recently competed at the senior national championships in Bulawayo with Harare defending their title.
They are the title holders again for the juniors and with more swimmers compared to the other provinces, they are the favourites going into this event.
Online Reporter