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The revered athletics coach is now the Hwange Football Club fitness trainer.
Athletes who spoke to Chronicle Sport said they no longer have their regular training sessions as their coach, Nyape spends most of the time with the football team yet over the years, the sports officer’s main job has been athletics.
The biggest sporting event in mining companies, the Chamber of Mines has always been athletics with most mining companies employing full time sports officers.
“He no longer attends our training sessions and I can safely say that athletics is almost dead at the Colliery because of that. Even if we train on our own, there is a need for an expert to take us through our paces,” said one athlete who preferred anonymity.
The athlete said their future in the sport was now uncertain and had it not been for the opportunity of getting permanent employment at the Colliery, most of them would have left for other clubs.
However, Hwange Colliery Company corporate affairs manager Burzil Dube, while confirming that Nyape now spends the greater part of his day with the football club, defended the move and refuted claims that he had abandoned athletics.
“It’s not true that he has completely abandoned athletics, he spends 60 percent of his time with the soccer team. He is a sports officer not an athletics coach and his duties also include what he is doing now,” said Dube.
He said the athletes should also show maturity by training on their own instead of waiting for Nyape.
Some of Hwange’s most decorated athletes such as Temba Ncube and Gabriel Chikomo have since retired from the sport due to lack of training.
Chikomo indicated to this paper last month that lack of training was forcing him to consider leaving the sport that he loved.
Some observers said Nyape could have been frustrated by the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe administrative inefficiencies and lack of professionalism that has seen people with relative lack of success in the sport being given national team coaching posts.
Online Reporter