adminHAS it ever occurred to us that the most successful sporting personalities in the history of our country are women? Zimbabwean women athletes have won a total of eight medals, three golds, four silvers and one bronze, in two sports, hockey and swimming at the Olympic Games.
The women’s national field hockey team set the ball rolling for the newly independent country with the first gold medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and it took 24 years for the next Olympic gold, courtesy of swimming sensation Kirsty Coventry at the Athens Games in Greece. The third gold medal was also won by Coventry four years later at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
Even when Zimbabwe was still participating in the commonwealth Games, our female athletes have always dwarfed their male counterparts by scaling the summit of international competitions.
It, however, seems that our national sports associations have an uneasy relationship with female athletes in spite of them frequently outdoing their male counterparts and it must be frustrating for sportswomen to see that the highest level they can aspire to is second-class citizen status in our sport.
Women’s sport has long been shamefully neglected in Zimbabwe by a sadly all-male establishment and it must be frustrating for our gallant female sportspersons.
Zimbabwean women and girls are still a long way behind men in terms of the respect that our sport gives them and there is no better example than the Olympics-bound national women’s soccer team, the Mighty Warriors. Despite them making history by becoming the first national soccer team to qualify for the biggest sporting showcase on the globe, they have previously and continue to be treated as “poor cousins” of their male counterparts, the Warriors.
Zifa seems to be of the mistaken belief that its obligation is only to the senior national men’s side, the Warriors, since every form of sponsorship the association secures is pumped into the Warriors’ camp, while our girls make do without proper camping facilities or allowances.
Zifa is guilty of underestimating the ability of our women footballers by sidelining, underfunding and ignoring their plight, and the legacy of the historic Mighty Warriors’ achievement is in danger of being squandered if resources are not urgently mobilised for our girls’ preparations for the Rio Olympics in August.
Marketing of the women’s game has also been negligible and the state of the women’s league is in a state of gloom due to Zifa’s failure or lack of enthusiasm to ride on the Mighty Warriors’ success to secure financial and moral support.
Time and again, Zifa has promised us that uplifting the standard of women’s football was top of its priority, but successive administrations have never backed up their words with action. Instead, women’s football has been treated as an extra burden to the national association.
Our girls have shown on numerous occasions that they can reach the pinnacle of any sport if they are given the correct support and it’s high time Zifa and other national sports associations take notice of them.
It must frustrate and sadden sports-loving women that the games they adore won’t really admit them as full citizens. This surely diminishes girls’ interest in sport, making them less likely to take up sport seriously.
derick.khumalo