Vusumuzi Dube
Sports Reporter
GERMANY-based instructor Karl Günter Lange is coming back to Zimbabwe to conduct another high-level 1 National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe international course in Bulawayo next week.
The week-long course will get underway on Monday at White City Stadium and is meant to ensure that coaches take a scientific approach in their methods.
Gunter Lange last conducted a Level 2 long and middle distance running last year at the same venue. The well-traveled instructor has been to over 70 countries training athletics coaches.
It is the first physical training course to be held in the country since World Athletics re-introduced physical courses. The governing body had suspended the programs and introduced online formats.
But a number of coaches from rural schools faced connectivity challenges and failed to complete the online course.
NAAZ president Tendai Tagara said they requested from the international body for a face-to-face course and were granted permission.
The course has attracted huge interest from different trainers and teachers across all the provinces.
The course will cover a number of aspects that includes focusing on theory application, development of a training programme, biomechanics, physiology and psychology,
“We are happy to host the course although we were among the first countries to implement the e-learning format and had a huge number of coaches who completed it.
“The world athletics introduced the e-learning format of the international level 1 course and encouraged all countries to implement it. Zimbabwe was one of the first countries to implement it. We had 78 coaches who implemented it, and out of 78 coaches, a total of 49 were able to do and complete the course in the stipulated duration of three months.
“Many coaches in the rural areas mainly and a few from urban set up met a lot of challenges of connectivity and by end of the programme they were still at ten percent of completion.
“So because of these challenges of connectivity of our rural coaches and few urban, we wrote a statistical analysis for the world body to accept our request for a physical course to accommodate these. We are glad that our request was granted. We believe and have recommended that physical course is the best if we are not to produce an ‘ internet coach’,” said Tagara.
The veteran administrator says the course has been oversubscribed with about 30 coaches expected to attend the Level 1 course.
“The NAAZ international Microcyle has seen an overwhelming response from all provinces I am happy with the support from schools as some were able to take the maximum slots per centre of two.
“This course is being run for the first time in Zimbabwe. It covers all track and field and road race events. It will equip the coach to manage all events. Sports directors and monitors of all athletics events at school will also benefit from this course,” said Tagara.
Online Reporter