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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhosini Hlongwane yesterday said they are going to work closely with the Zimbabwe Volleyball Association in their bid to qualify for next year’s Olympic Games.
The Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and volleyball is still in the qualification process. The qualifiers, which will be held sometime early next year, will see the top country going to represent Africa in Rio.
The first and second runners-up will go for play-offs with countries from other continents.
Hlongwane was speaking during a meeting with the visiting CAVB technical and development officer Enzanai Madzivire and the Zimbabwe Volleyball Association leadership led by Frederick Ndlovu, who were updating the minister on the African Dream Project.
Madzivire is a former ZVA vice president.
The 10-year-long project is meant to develop the sport from grassroots level throughout the continent which was being dominated by just a few countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Kenya. Hlongwane took the opportunity to enquire on Zimbabwe’s rankings as well as their chances in the Olympic Games qualifiers to be held sometime early next year before assuring the national volleyball association of the ministry’s support.
“To Mr Ndlovu let me say we want you to qualify for the Olympics, Rio Olympics next year. We want a biggest contingent of athletes Zimbabwe has ever sent to the Olympics. We want your beach volleyball to come on board but most importantly we want your (indoor) volleyball teams to be part of the Olympics in Rio.
“And we are going to work very closely with you. Your rankings are not good, you shouldn’t be on number 21, we want you to come up at least in the top five. You shouldn’t fail because we have him (Madzivire) there at the continental association, very supportive I can see from what he is saying.
“I want you to know that as ministry at the level of policy intervention, policy formulation, policy administration, we will provide volleyball with a lot of support. For us no sport is bigger than the other, all sport codes are important,” said Hlongwane.
The beach volleyball teams are also expected to compete in their own Olympic Games qualifiers next month.
On the project, Hlongwane said he is impressed with the approach the continental federation is taking in monitoring the progress being made by their affiliates.
“I am very happy with your hands on approach as far as involvement with your associations or federations is concerned I think that is something that we need because it keeps our associations to account. In this particular case our volleyball association in Zimbabwe is able to account and is responsible in terms of acquitting its tasks in respect of how it runs the sport of volleyball in the country.
“As far as development of volleyball at grassroots is concerned it has been the one thing that has been lacking in most sport codes in our country. And we think that if we broaden the pyramid at the base as far as development is concerned it should be easier to identify, to track the best talent for the high performance and that is very important for us,” said Hlongwane.
The Minister of Sport and Recreation said they appreciate the support to the national association by CAVB.
Zimbabwe has four centres of excellence for the project in Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo and Masvingo.
And Madzivire said they are happy with the progress Zimbabwe is making in implementing the African Dream Project.
“I have enjoyed the time here, we have had to be a little bit harsh sometimes where the work was not up to our standard. But our main objective is to make sure that we justify the trust that has been put in us by the international bodies and also the resources that we are channelling. The resources are scarce, so we need to make sure that when we get it we use them optimally,” said Madzivire.
ZVA president Ndlovu said the project is meant to develop the sport from grassroots level.
“We have what we call the African Dream Dr Ari Graca’s Project for Africa. This project is basically a long- term athlete development programme. So in Zimbabwe we have four centres of excellence — one in Harare and second one in Masvingo, third Gweru and the fourth in Bulawayo, so we started this project in September 2014.
“And this week we have the inspector from the CAVB, Enzanai Madzivire, who has come to do the supervision and actual assessments on the ground of what’s happening. But, most importantly, to also ensure that whatever we are doing we are doing it according to the guidelines of the project. So we are hoping that by the time he leaves he will leave us in a better position to continue with the implementation of the project. He is here for a week,” said Ndlovu. Each centre is supposed to have a maximum of 50 kids and a minimum of 25 kids catering for children between the ages of eight to 14.
Harare and Masvingo have the eight- to 10-year-olds while Bulawayo is targeting the 10- to 12-year-olds. Midlands is for the 12- to 14-year-olds.
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