Country should invest in sport for returns

Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
ZIMBABWE is unlikely to reap any sporting benefits unless serious investment is made in the industry.

Speaking at a two-day media workshop organised by the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee in Harare, several speakers that included Olympic gold medalist Kirsty Coventry, sports scientist Dr Austin Jeans and ZOC chief executive officer Anna Mguni felt without conscious investment efforts in sport, the country will always moan about poor results.

Coventry said she was disappointed with the portrayal of the country’s representatives as failures at the 2016 Rio Olympics when there had been little investment in preparations for the games.

The swimmer cited the Mighty Warriors, who made a remarkable feat of qualifying for the Olympics, but were labelled failures after losing all their games in the group stages.

She said the senior female football team was drawn against teams that had spent over two years preparing for the competition, while Zimbabwe struggled to come up with serious preparations.

“You would find people saying that they (Mighty Warriors) failed, but what did they expect? Where was the investment there? Did we really believe we could beat Germany which assembled a team two years before the games?

“There is a general trend to look at the result, but not what was invested. There is a correlation between the investment made in sport and the results we get. If we hope to win more medals then we have put money in the game,” Coventry said.

Jeans, a sports medicine specialist, concurred, saying local sports practitioners were failing to incorporate sports science into their overall training programmes.

He said while evidence showed incorporating sports science improved performance, there was little effort to use the research locally and also to groom more sports medicine and science experts.

Jeans cited the example of Australia that had five medals in the 1976 Olympics resulting in a conscious decision to change the sporting landscape that resulted in the importation of elite coaches to train local coaches.

“The programme saw the country (Australia) coming up with the best coaches that were able to mentor great athletes resulting in a 58-medal haul in 2000. This was through a 10 year programme they came up with and funded,” said Jeans.

Zimbabwe’s sports have been hamstrung by lack of funding at all levels and this has been exacerbated by little Government funding in sport.