admin“We were told that the lines were too faint for the visually-impaired athletes so we had to make them more whiter,” said one of the workers who was working on the track lines.
The first track event, the 1 500m for the visually-impaired women saw the athletes getting off the blocks at 11.15am.
When all was thought to be on course in the track events, another problem surfaced. Medical personnel were clearly overwhelmed as they could not timeously attend to athletes who would have succumbed to the scorching Hwange heat.
This was despite the availability of two ambulances that were on standby as the crew only had one stretcher.
The first field event started well after 12 noon after a tape measure was sourced from Hwange Colliery Company.
A livid athletics competitions director Nhoro called for the involvement of technical people in the organisation of games of this magnitude.
“Having endless meetings of general managers without technical people is meaningless, we need technical people because clearly this is rather embarrassing,” said Nhoro.
Meanwhile, Harare’s Thedene Charamba came home first in the intellectually challenged 1 500m women’s race, clocking 6 minutes 07 seconds with host province’s Veshelishe Dube crossing the finishing line in 6 minutes 24.22 seconds.
In third place was Midlands’ Jesca Masendeke who came home in 7 minutes 09.81 seconds.
For the men, Mashonaland East’s Macdonald Machingura romped home in 4 minutes 37 seconds, while Ajala Ncube of Matabeleland South clocked 4 minutes 42. 62 seconds. Third was Blessed Mgwayo of Mashonaland West in 5 minutes 30.38 seconds.
The athletes were however still to be classified to determine the eventual winners after both seniors and juniors were made to run in the same race.
Online Reporter