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Ellina Mhlanga-Senior Sports Reporter
THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe’s efforts to qualify a number of athletes for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, have ended on a disappointing note.
Hopes were high athletics would provide a number of athletes for Team Zimbabwe, at the Games. However, athletics will now have one representative, going to the Games, on a universality slot.
“We are quite disappointed that we did not have the number that we expected to travel to Tokyo.
”We did not achieve that goal, that number.
“We are very disappointed although we are still optimistic that in the coming future we have hope of sending a bigger team to the USA, the World Championships (in 2022).
“Looking at the pandemic, the effects of the pandemic on our athletes, the shortness of the period of performance, the lockdown, (and) competition period, that was very short.
“Basically, three months of trying to do high performance training and qualify, it gives us the impression that we did not prepare fully,” said NAAZ director for coaching, talent identification and development Lisimati Phakamile. However, there is need to note that the qualifying standards for next year’s global meet are the same as the ones for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games. This means, the national association and the athletes have to push even harder or they will face the same scenario, come next year, where they may struggle again to achieve those times.
Zimbabwe had been invited for the MoC Relays in Nigeria which were expected to get underway today.
The country was set to send the men’s 4x100m relay team and a women’s 4x400m team. Indications were that the sponsors of the event were going to cater for everything, including the air fares, for the team.
“We could not travel to Nigeria and it’s only because we picked that Nigeria was not responding to our communication in time.
”We decided, as an association, that we could not take the risk of going to a competition where the organisers are not communicating back to us.
“We have been to Nigeria before, we know how it becomes very difficult and challenging, even if they are saying they are in control.
“So, we felt that if we travel to that place, where they are not communicating we might be in a lot of trouble, and logistical challenges, and problems that we might not be able to solve in time.
“Because of that poor communication, and other administrative issues, we decided to pull out of that meet.
“For this season now, we are done with the senior athletes. It’s now Ngoni (Makusha), who is the only athlete proceeding to the Olympics,” said Phakamile. For the women’s team, they were looking at building up for next year’s World Championships. Qualification to the World Championships, due to take place from July 15 to 24, 2022, is already open. The qualification period for marathon, and 35km race walk, opened on November 30, 2020, and ends on May 29 2022.
For 10 000m, 20km race walk, relays and combined events qualification opened on December 27, 2020 and closes on June 26, 2022. For all the other disciplines, the qualification period is June 27, 2021 to June 26, 2022.
Online Reporter