Online Reporter
ON an unseasonally cold and misty Marondera August morning, it would have been easy to believe that the weather had conspired against sport. Instead, the young athletes of Zimbabwe did what sport has always done best. They brought warmth to the occasion.
Across venues in and around the Mashonaland East provincial capital, a festival of sport has been unfolding, bringing together young athletes from around the country for the Zimbabwe National Youth and Paralympic Games.
The mist may have hung heavily over Marondera due to the cold front swirling in most parts of the country, the temperatures may have been decidedly unfriendly but the enthusiasm of the young athletes, coaches, officials, families and supporters has provided a warmth that no weather forecast could measure.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand these Games. They are about opportunity and discovery. They are about opening doors for young Zimbabweans who may otherwise never have had the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do.
The return of the Games after a six-year absence is therefore worth celebrating. For any serious sporting nation, six years is a long time. It represents the active lifespan of an entire generation of young athletes who could have been competing, learning and being identified.
Government’s move to bring them back, restores an important part of Zimbabwe’s sporting ecosystem.
The Zimbabwe National Youth and Paralympic Games are, at their heart, a national talent-identification platform. This is where a young athlete from a school, club or community can suddenly find themselves competing against the best of their age from another part of the country.
This is where a coach can see something special, where a selector can discover an athlete who had previously been unknown beyond their home community and where potential can begin its journey towards performance.
And that is why the importance of the Games extends well beyond Marondera. Zimbabwe cannot build successful national teams by waiting for talent to somehow find its way to Harare.
Talent is everywhere yet opportunity is not.
The responsibility of a national sporting system is therefore to take opportunity to where the talent is.
That is precisely why the Presidential principle of leaving no place and no one behind matters.
A young athlete should not have their sporting future determined by the accident of where they were born. Nor should disability become a barrier to being seen, supported and given the opportunity to compete.
The inclusion of the Paralympic Games alongside the Youth Games sends an important message. Zimbabwe’s sporting future must have room for everyone.
Whether one is from an urban school or a rural district. The child whose family cannot afford expensive private sporting programmes or the athlete with a disability, all deserve a pathway.
And that is where the Games perform a particularly important national function.
They bring the country together through sport. For a few weeks, Marondera becomes a meeting point for Zimbabwean youth from different provinces, different communities and varying backgrounds.
They compete against one another, make friends, win and lose.
They learn discipline, learn that representing a province carries responsibility and perhaps most importantly, they begin to understand that their sporting journey can take them somewhere.
This is the soft power of sport at its finest.
But there is also a warning that must accompany the celebration. Identifying talent is only the beginning. The real test comes after the Games.
A young athlete who shines in Marondera cannot simply return home with a medal and be forgotten until the next Games.
There must be systems to track that athlete, coaches to develop them, competitions in which they can continue to perform, sports science, medical support and appropriate training.
There must be a pathway from provincial representation to national teams and ultimately, international competition. A talent-identification programme is only as strong as the development pathway that follows it.
That is where the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) and the sporting federations have an enormous responsibility. The Games can open the door. The system must ensure that the athlete can walk through it. This is particularly important because Zimbabwe has repeatedly demonstrated that it possesses extraordinary sporting talent. The challenge has never been simply finding talented young people.
It has been finding them early enough, developing them properly and retaining them within a system capable of taking them to the highest level.
Marondera provides an opportunity to strengthen that system.
The athletes competing are auditioning for futures they cannot yet see. They may one day wear national colours and represent Zimbabwe at the Olympic or Paralympic Games.
Some may become coaches, administrators or teachers who inspire another generation.
And others may simply discover, through these Games, a confidence that changes the direction of their lives.
All of those outcomes matter.
That is why these Games should be viewed as an investment rather than an expense. If the Games have done what they are designed to do, some of the young people who would have passed through
Marondera this August will never return to anonymity.
Someone will see them, measured their ability and recognised their potential. And, hopefully, someone will open the next door. That is what leaving no place and no one behind should mean in Zimbabwean sport.
On those cold, misty mornings in Marondera, it is easy to focus on the immediate spectacle—the competition, the cheering, the medals and the excitement.
But somewhere among those athletes may be Zimbabwe’s next great sprinter, the next Mighty Warrior, the next Sable, the next Chevrons star, the next Paralympic champion.
They may not know it yet. Neither may we.
That is precisely why platforms such as the Zimbabwe National Youth and Paralympic Games should never be allowed to die. They give Zimbabwe the chance to find out.
And in the chill of Marondera, that may be the warmest story of all.
