It’s a sporty Xmas

Makhosini Hlongwane
AS a sports sector we have a lot to celebrate this Christmas.

The year 2016 has been an improved year and we at the the Ministry of Sport and Recreation are pleased with how our athletes performed.

Of course a lot more could have been done but we appreciate the efforts made by our athletes across all sporting disciplines.

The economic situation had a bearing in more ways, but I think we did well for example in soccer both the senior teams were impressive.

The Mighty Warriors are now Olympians and the Warriors showed they have come of age by being the only Southern African team to qualify for Afcon and doing that with a game to spare was remarkable.

We also had our Under 21 netball team qualifying for their World Cup set for next year.

The hockey junior women’s team also qualified for their World Cup which was held in Chile last month and did their best there.

The Zimbabwe Karate Union hosted the region and also brought medals from various parts of the world.

I can’t forget Charles Manyuchi, the WBC Welterweight champion who continued to raise the country’s flag high.

There is also the cricket ladies team who qualified for the World T20 Qualifiers set for the West Indies in February, 2017.

We were able to send the largest delegation to the Olympics since our independence; we had 53 people, athletes and officials combined.

Recently Zimbabwe broke its record with a 96 medals haul at the Region V Games, challenging our own record when we hosted the games in Bulawayo in 2014.

The list is quite long I could go on and on, but I must congratulate our athletes for their efforts.

To everyone who represented the country we say well done.

In sports diplomacy we also saw some of our administrators being elected in various positions regionally and internationally.

We are happy with that.

Recently we had the Zifa president Phillip Chiyangwa being elected the COSAFA president for example.

However they were some lows.

We lost very passionate sports administrators in an accident early this month while others are nursing injuries after they were involved in an accident.

It was a sad chapter and as we continue to mourn our departed colleagues and wish those that were injured a speedy recovery we have started instituting changes in the way we travel to and from assignments.

There were also lows on the sport governance front and as the Ministry of Sport and Recreation we have declared the year 2017 as the year of proper governance.

We will be very tough with associations.

We need associations to develop structures that inspire corporate confidence.

Most of the challenges were in governance.

We understand the tough economic environment as the Ministry, we know some times associations couldn’t get funds but we are saying next year let’s find ways to improve, surely there must be ways.

I believe in 2017 there will be more success stories, we did well in 2016 but there is obviously room for improvement in the coming year.

The Minister of Sport and Recreation, Makhosini Hlongwane was speaking to The Sunday Mail’s Brighton Zhawi last week.