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Ellina Mhlanga-Senior Sports Reporter
AS local athletes continue to push to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the hope is that a few more make the grade to boost the team size compared to the previous edition.
Zimbabwe had five athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, with three of them getting universality slots.
For the forthcoming Paris Games, five athletes have secured their spots.
Four of them met the automatic qualifying standards and only one has so far received a universality slot, which has been encouraging for Team Zimbabwe.
A few of the earmarked sports codes are still in the run for qualification, with the window for disciplines such as swimming, judo, triathlon, golf and athletics still open.
There is room to surpass the number for Tokyo 2020.
But the question also remains, what is it that the country needs to change, to continuously improve the numbers for such big events, and also improve local athletes’ chances of fighting for podium performances?
Speaking to Zimpapers Sports recently, Team Zimbabwe’s chef de mission for Paris, Ringisai Mapondera, said a deliberate approach towards investing in various aspects of sport could change things for the better.
“I think the Olympics are not prepared for in four years. That’s my thinking and as a country, we do not have scientific sports facilities in Zimbabwe. We do not have an indoor facility that can be of world standards.
“Our soccer teams cannot play here in Zimbabwe because we don’t have a basic stadium that can host international competition.
“So, we are not investing enough as a country and as individuals and as corporates. We are not putting enough into the sport as an industry to ensure that the results that we desire come the Olympics, come the World Cup, are high.
“So yes, there is a need to refocus, to relook at what is it that we are doing as a country towards sports as an industry . . . We are not at the same level as other countries when it comes to how we take sport.”
Mapondera added that there is a need for concerted effort from all stakeholders, noting that most of the success stories have been due to individual efforts.
“Most of our sporting athletes who are successful are mainly due to personal investment, parents’ investment, and we need to change that.
“We need to go to the basics and ensure that we hand pick athletes from a very tender age that are looked after in a systematic way, and not just leave it to the parents or the system as it were, so that we do have these numbers going up.
“We will not simply win by just saying the Olympics are in the next four years, who is the best? How did they get to be the best of the potential, that is the question we ask.
“You will notice that marathon was always our strongest code because institutions such as the military, and the police invested heavily into these.
“Isaac Mpofu comes from a police background. So, if we have institutions like that going back to what they used to do, I believe that we will have better prospects of more athletes going.
“Currently it’s more of individual efforts. Yes, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee comes in, and yes government comes in but we come in at the very end of the career of an athlete, where they are now going to take part in a competition.
“But (the) important point is the period before, and not the preparations, when it’s just a few months to go to the Olympics,” said Mapondera.
Mpofu, together with fellow marathon runner Rutendo Nyahora, sprinters Tapiwa Makarawu and Makanakaishe Charamba, and rower Stephen Cox have qualified for the Paris Games.
Online Reporter