adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
TRACK and field star Ngonidzashe Makusha is out of the race for a medal in this year’s World Championships as he failed to meet the qualifying standard when he leaped 7.97m on Saturday at an event held in Brussels, Belgium. The championships will run from August 10 to 18 in Moscow, Russia.
Makusha who missed last year’s Olympic Games due to an injury has been pushing to qualify for the long jump event but found the going tough when he missed the qualifying standard that has been set at 8.15m and 8.10m for the A and B standard respectively.
The National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe had delayed submitting their final team hoping that Makusha a bronze medalist in the previous World Championships held in Daegu, South Korea would make it but he failed leaving sprinter Gabriel Mvumvure and long-distance runner, Cephas Pasipamire as the two representatives for the country in this year’s competition.
United States-based Mvumvure booked his place in the 100m event when he ran 9.98s at an outdoor season competition in the US while Pasipamire stopped the clock in 2hours 16minutes 15seconds during the Pyong-yang marathon in March this year.
Other athletes that had qualified for the World Championships are long-distance runners Wirimai Juwawo and Cutbert Nyasango but they will not be competing in Moscow with Juwawo nursing an injury and Nyasango indicated that he is not fit enough to participate.
NAAZ president Tendai Tagara said they are happy with the number of athletes that made it to the championships although it has been affected by the withdrawal of Juwawo and Nyasango.
“The team must be entered tomorrow (today), that’s the final day for submission and we are happy that that we are not going to the World Championships on wild cards but on qualification.
“This is a crop of 2007 that is coming to an end and we have a good crop of juniors coming up so as a national association we can’t say we have failed.
“We had four athletes that had qualified but the other two will not be competing, so basically it is the same number of athletes with those that qualified for the previous World Championships,” said Tagara.
The NAAZ president said he is expecting the two athletes to do well in Moscow.
“With his present performance, Mvumvure must reach the semi-finals and Pasipamire I can see him in the top 20. To me medals are a bonus because what I am looking at is a good performance, doing their best and running their personal best times,” said Tagara.
Meanwhile, the Harare athletics board held a competition for middle distance runners on Saturday hoping they can get qualifying times for the World Championships but they failed with some of the hopefuls such as Jonathan Chinyoka and Elijah Mabhunu failing to turn up for the event.
Simbarashe Chikadaga missed the qualification time with six seconds as he ran 28minutes 11seconds. The qualification time was 28minutes 5seconds.
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