Chauke on right track

Ellina Mhlanga 

Senior Sports Reporter 

HEAD of the national event coaches team for middle and long-distance runners, Benson Chauke believes they are on the right track as they continued with their preparations for qualifying races with some of the athletes competing in different competitions over the weekend. 

Several distance runners targeted for the 2023 World Athletics Championships and Paris 2024 Olympic Games’ qualification are in camp, in Harare. 

Tendai Zimuto, Moses Tarakinyu, Tatenda Hove and Wellington Varevi competed in the CBZ Marathon while Fortunate Chidzivo ran the Century City 10km Express in South Africa on Saturday. 

Zimuto emerged the winner in the marathon while Tarakinyu won the 21km race. 

Varevi and Hove were placed first and second in the 10km race. 

Chauke said they had different targets for different athletes going into the weekend’s events and is satisfied with the outcome for most of the athletes. 

“Tatenda we brought him here about three weeks ago to run a marathon to find a baseline performance of where he was, so today (Sunday) we wanted to give him a shorter distance and see how he would fare on the distance. 

“We were doing base work for Varevi and for Moses Tarakinyu with the intention of building that up into more speed work as we taper into our targeted race on the 2nd of April. And I was looking at how they would fare against the rest of the country.

“With Tendai, he is graduating to do the marathon, he has never done one, we also wanted to find his baseline mark. 

“I think the work we were doing, we are on the right track. The course that he ran is hilly and a very difficult course, it’s not a fast one. But running 2.18 in such a course shows that all our base strength training and power training for his marathon race is on the right course. 

“For the other guys, for Moses running a 63 and also for this course it’s also work in progress. Tatenda having coming from a marathon, also coming second to Wellington, it’s very encouraging.” 

Varevi and Tarakinyu are pursuing qualification for 10,000m and are set to compete at the Absa Run Your City Gqeberha 10K on April 2. 

“So we are now going to target our major race which is on the 2nd of April in Cape Town, the Absa 10km to see if we can lower our times towards World Athletics qualifying events. 

“For now we are trying a double major. If we qualify now, we qualify for both (World Championships and Olympics). 

But even if we don’t but we improve towards our desired time, we still can qualify and still proceed to do the Olympics next year,” said Chauke. 

Chidzivo is chasing qualification for marathon and she won the Century City 10km in South Africa in 34 minutes 18 seconds. 

“Fortunate is in the middle of a marathon preparation.