adminMzingaye Sibanda Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe team to represent the country in the Confederation of Schools Sports of Southern Africa (Cossasa) Track and Field Championships in Bostwana will go into camp this Sunday.The team will camp at Northlea High School before it embarks on a journey to defend its title in Gaborone from April 22-26.
They won the athletics competition in Harare last year after scooping 61 medals – 19 gold, 20 silver and 22 bronze while Namibia were runners-up with 19 gold, 11 silver and eight bronze.
This year they face stiff competition from South Africa who will be taking part after years of absence, as well as Zambia, Namibia, Lesotho and the hosts Botswana.
Cossasa competitions cater for both primary and secondary schools represented by the Under-14 and Under-18 age groups respectively.
Participants will be competing in 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1 500m, the 4x100m and 4x200m relay events and while in the field events there is high jump, triple jump, javelin, discus and long jump.
Team Zimbabwe’s squad has athletes from both rural and urban Zimbabwe.
National Association of Secondary Heads (Nash) vice-president Arthur Maphosa told Chronicle Sport that the athletes would converge in the city in preparation for the 2014 edition of the Games.
“Everything is set for the training camp, the Cossasa teams will converge on Northlea High School in Bulawayo on Sunday where they will do their preparations before we travel,” said Maphosa.
He stressed that the tournament is meant to empower youngsters and expose talent within school children which in turn will help them to advance in their sporting careers.
Bulawayo has the likes of Yvonne Vanhuvaone who will be making her third appearance at the Games.
In the junior category they have Mthabisi Dube and Ndumiso Ncube who both led Bulawayo Metropolitan Province to second spot in the finals held in Hwange last month after they scooped six gold medals.
Dube was crowned the best athlete during the event.
Matabeleland North have five athletes while Matabeleland South had two compared to Bulawayo seven in the Under-14 category.
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