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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter
LONG-DISTANCE runner Fortunate Chidzivo is hoping to get a better and fast race as she pursues qualification for the World Championships and Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Chidzivo is one of the six long-distance runners in camp, in Harare, preparing for qualifying races to the 2023 World Championships and Paris 2024.
She is a beneficiary of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Olympic Solidarity Paris 2024 Scholarships.
Her last race was in December when she came fifth at the Malaga Marathon in 2hours 35minutes 5seconds.
The qualifying time for women is 2hours 28minutes and 2hours 9minutes 40seconds in the men’s section.
“We are just trying to correct the errors from the previous marathon. As I have said before that it was a confidence builder and just trying to look for a personal best, which is exactly what we did. We built confidence, we ran a PB (personal best) though it wasn’t huge but we tried our best.
“So when you build confidence you are able to see the errors. So we are here for corrections. And so far we have few things we have already corrected. So we are looking forward to a better race than the previous one,” said Chidzivo.
The camp is expected to run for three months but Chidzivo, who had already begun her build-up prior to this camp, competing at the Malaga Marathon last December as well, said with the progress she has made, she may compete anytime from now.
But her concern is finding a good race, which is difficult because of her time.
“I might race anytime because I am already somewhere and I can go for a race. From April to May I can go to any race.
“But the fact that we do not have good times, we are lagging behind, we cannot tell exactly when we will race because we are begging for entries because our times are far behind.
“Now to be able to get a race in Europe, a race where you get a route you can say if we go to this race with the training we did we can set targets, they want 2:28 to invite you. And I am around 2:35. So that’s a huge difference, so we are still begging for entries.
“So we are just praying to get a better race than Malaga because the route was uneven, there was nothing we could do.
“For the Olympics, we still have more time but we can’t really consider it because there is no European race that is going to invite me with 2:35. So we still have to try and find a race where I am going to drop my time. At least if I bring my time down closer to those times they want then we know definitely I am going to be invited,” said Chidzivo.
Their training programme includes long runs, gym work and speed work.
Other athletes in camp are Isaac Mpofu, who has already qualified and is preparing for the Boston Marathon.
Tatenda Hove is still chasing qualifying time as well as Tendai Zimuto and the pair of Wellington Varevi and Moses Tarakinyu who are targeting 10 000m.
Varevi said there has been some positive changes since he came into camp.
“We are now pushing hard. My first attempt is on 2 April in South Africa and I am hoping to run sub-28:00. We are working hard.
“From my observation there have been some changes because we are meeting the targets during training and I would want to believe things will work out.
“We just have to work hard and utilise the support we are getting,” said Varevi.
Besides Chidzivo, other female marathon runners pursuing qualification are Olivia Chitate and South Africa-based Rutendo Nyahora.
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