adminCollin Matiza and Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporters
AMON MADZVAMUSE, the president of the Zimbabwe Handball Federation, is scheduled to leave the country on Wednesday next week for Doha, Qatar, to attend the International Handball Federation congress.The IHF congress is set to run from January 28 to February 2 and it is coinciding with the on-going 2015 World Men’s Handball Championships.
The 2015 World Men’s Handball Championship is the 24th edition of this global event organised by the IHF and the tournament is being held for the first time in Qatar where it got underway on January 15 and will finish on February 1 in Doha.
And Madzvamuse is expected to join the leaders of other handball federations or associations from across the globe during next week’s IHF congress where they will discuss how the sport should be run in the next four years.
“This is the second time that I will be attending the IHF congress, the first time being in 2010, and I will be the sole representative of Zimbabwe there because our secretary-general, Alphios Magiya, has just returned from Doha where he attended an IHF secretaries-general workshop.
“But at next week’s IHF congress, I’m likely to be joined by the presidents or chairpersons of other handball federations or associations from the Zone Six region here in Africa and it is at this indaba where the world’s handball gurus meet and discuss the way forward and how the sport should be run four years from now,” Madzvamuse said.
“There has been a number of activities or programmes that the IHF has been giving to the Zone Six region of late as part of their world development programmes and in short we’re grateful that they (the IHF) are now recognising our region and are helping us to develop the sport through these activities.
“For instance, they gave us projects which we are currently running for schools and we are also going to get some coaches from overseas who are going to help us in running these programmes from this year and this will go a long way in making the sport grow in our country and in other countries in the southern African region as well,” Madzvamuse said.
Meanwhile, one of the country’s top handball coaches Allan Mandeya says the coaching course he attended in Doha, Qatar, last week was an eye-opener.
Mandeya was among four Zimbabwean handball coaches that were selected at national level to take part in the five-day course held from January 14 to 18.
“The symposium was looking at new strategies of attacking and defending. It also focused on how to develop teams in a long and short run.
“We still need to discuss our plans with the Coaches’ Commission and the other coaches we had in Qatar, that we host our own symposium in Zimbabwe. I think that’s where we can start. “We also need to make a clear policy on how we are going to start development programmes at junior level because with the old guys we have, it’s going to be difficult to change the type of play,” said Mandeya.
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