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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter
LOCAL distance runners will have to up their game in their pursuit for qualification to next year’s World Athletics Championships after failing to meet the standards recently in South Africa.
Moses Tarakinyu, Wellington Varevi, Tendai Zimuto, Tatenda Hove and Elijah Mabhunu are some of the athletes the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe are hoping can make the grade for 10 000m and marathon.
They took part in the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon with the quartet of Tarakinyu, Zimuto, Mabhunu and Varevi chasing the qualifying standard for 10 000m. However, they fell short despite making the top 10.
Hove did not finish the marathon after picking an injury during the race.
Tarakinyu came fourth in 29 minutes 8 seconds. He was followed by Varevi on fifth place in a time of 29 minutes 13 seconds.
Mabhunu was seventh in 29 minutes 34 seconds and Zimuto finished on position 10 in 30 minutes 31 seconds. The qualifying time is 27 minutes 10 seconds for men and for women it’s 30 minutes 40 seconds.
For men’s marathon, athletes have to clock 2 hours 9 minutes 40 seconds for men and 2 hours 28 minutes for women.
The winning time for the 10km race was 28 minutes 46 seconds and for marathon it was 2 hours 9 minutes 58 seconds.
Head of the national event coaches team for middle and long-distance runners, Benson Chauke, said the weather conditions was the major setback.
“Our preparations went well, our timelines and targets on our preparations they went well, there is nothing we would blame that the athletes did not have. I strongly believe that we did our bit and we prepared well.
“But the only one thing that we did not prepare for was the weather and also we didn’t know the course. But that’s beside the point, the weather was the greatest challenge.
“If we had a fair weather I think our athletes could have lowered their times and it would have given us an indicator that we are on the right trajectory. The weather was bad. It was very windy and that affected everyone”s time.”
Chauke, who worked with Isaac Mpofu for his qualification to the previous global meet, remains hopeful the ongoing process will bear fruits.
“It’s our hope that we get other track competitions where the team’s ability can be assessed. Like I always say Rome was not built in a day. This requires patience and perseverance to get the desired time.
“We leave to fight another day. Not all is lost, we have a good pool of athletes from which anything can happen,” said Chauke.
Besides the selected few athletes that were in camp, several Zimbabwean athletes attended the Cape Town Marathon with Blessing Waison finishing sixth in marathon, in 2 hours 15 minutes 10 seconds.
Online Reporter