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Collin Matiza
Sports Editor
AS most of the world’s top athletes make their final preparations for the delayed Summer Olympic Games in July, the spotlight locally will once again fall on Zimbabwe as the country tries to break the duck.
The country has not won a medal of any colour, in track and field events, at the global sporting showcase.
Zimbabwe first took part time at the Olympic Games in 1980.
Zimbabwean athletes have won eight medals, three golds, four silvers and one bronze, which came in two sport codes — women’s field hockey and swimming.
The Golden Girls of the women’s field hockey won the first gold in Moscow before Kirsty Coventry mined the other two golds at the Athens Games in Greece in 2004 and at the Beijing Games in China four years later.
Coventry also harvested Zimbabwe’s four silvers and one bronze medal.
A total of 197 male, and female athletes, have represented Zimbabwe at these Summer Games.
The only time Zimbabwe nearly won an Olympic Games medal, in track and field events, was at the 2008 Beijing Games when Ngonidzashe Makusha finished fourth in the men’s long jump event.
But there is one man who feels he could have won Zimbabwe’s first medal, in athletics at the Olympics, if he had been given the opportunity to represent the country — Philemon Hanneck.
Now based in Florida, United States, Hanneck (formerly Philemon Harineki) feels he could have, at least, mined a medal during the peak of his middle and long-distance career from the late 1980s and well into the 1990s.
Hanneck, a former Allan Wilson High School pupil in Harare, said he was a strong medal prospect at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games had he “not been treated unfairly and banned” by the then leadership of the Amateur Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (now National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe).
“I invested so much money and time in 1996, getting ready for the Olympic Games and was in great shape ever, (and I was) guaranteed a medal in the men’s 5 000m event but, out of the blue, I was banned from athletics, what a heartbreak!”
The then AAAZ president, Robert Mutsauki, said his association had to take the decision because of “his negative attitude when it came to representing the country in important meetings.”
Sprinter, Arnold Payne, was also barred from going to the same Olympic Games because of continued poor performances in international events.
But Hanneck, a 1994 Commonwealth Games silver medallist in the men’s 5 000m event, still feels he is one of the greatest road runners to emerge from this country.
“First of all, I never, ever got injuries in my career, I competed very well from my youth to high school, college and professional.
“Credit goes to Mr and Mrs Charles Griffith, the late Gift Chigwere, Mike Lochhead and Chris English, who played a major role in my life, and they are still involved.
“Fabian Muyaba and I were found or discovered by Gift, Chris and Mike; and our main sponsor was the Griffith family and Impala Athletics Club was formed in the mid-1980s.
“The club existed for only nine months and it was banned for the reason that I cannot discuss at this moment.
“When Impala was banned I was asked to join another club and, that time, I refused and remained at my home Allan Wilson High School and trained on my own.
“And, when I refused to join that other club, I ended up facing problems and was banned from competing in the All-Africa Games, my medals were taken for no reason.
“That time people were calling me Salisbury and Rhodesia, because Allan Wilson High School was mainly a school for whites (and my coaches) Chris (English) and Mike (Lochhead) were white.
“I then came to the United States (in January 1990) under Mrs and Mr Griffith’s guardianship and I became the best middle-distance runner in the world, and I did it by myself.
“As a matter of fact, I think I was the first man to run under 3:40 in 1 500m, definitely the first man to run under 4:00 in a mile in Zimbabwe.
“I travelled three-quarters of the world competing very well and it was done by myself.”
Hanneck, who is still heavily involved in athletics in the United States, said his main focus now is to help promising young Zimbabwean athletes in getting athletics scholarships in the USA.
Hanneck was identified at a young age in the rural areas of Marondera in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s.
Hanneck (49) is a former middle and long-distance runner who specialised in the 5 000m event.
He originally represented Zimbabwe before changing his nationality in 1999 to the United States.
Online Reporter