adminEllina Mhlanga Harare Bureau
HOCKEY Association of Zimbabwe president, Humphrey Chigwedere, says they are stepping up their preparations for the Junior World Cup scheduled for Santiago, Chile, later this year as they announced a 32-member squad yesterday for the Under-21 women side to represent the country in the event.
Zimbabwe qualified for the Junior World Cup in March when they came second at the Junior Africa Hockey Cup held in Windhoek, Namibia in March.
Chigwedere said preparations have started with the technical team led by coach Trish Davies conducting their first training last week with local players while the foreign based players are expected to start coming in next week.
They are expected to go into camp from June 16 to 19 in Harare during which the team will be trimmed down to 23 players.
“The team consists of 17 locally based players whilst the rest are based outside the country attending studies in countries such as Australia, Britain, South Africa and the United States of America.
“The local players have been assembled and are training every weekend. The foreign players are expected mid-month, starting next week when they’ll be on vacation.
“The final team of 18 travelling and five non-travelling reserves will be announced after further assessments of players during and after the proposed training camp, which is set to run from 16 to 19 June, 2016 in Harare. This is when most of all the foreign based players will be in the country on university vacation.
“What we’ve done is we’ve asked the management team to supply us with a programme after the training camp on how they’re going to monitor the players in case there might be a number of foreign players,” said Chigwedere.
Chigwedere said they have set up a fundraising committee to raise funds for the team’s preparations and trip to Chile. And they have secured sponsorship for the team’s kit.
“We’re looking at $120,000 for both the trip and preparations. We’ve started raising the funds. We’re being assisted by the Minister (Makhosini Hlongwane).
“So far we’re at four percent, in fact we met a sponsor who we can’t reveal at the moment who is willing to sponsor us with the kit. So the $5,000 for the kit is the four percent of the budget we’ve secured.
“And we still need to raise the 96 percent. So this is why we’ve set up a fundraising committee. I’m also running a sponsored marathon at the Econet marathon on July 3. Whatever I raise from that marathon, half of it will go to the ladies and the other half will go to the hockey stadium in Banket for developmental purposes. That’s my personal contribution.’’
derick.khumalo