adminMzingaye Sibanda Sports Reporter
MATABELELAND North yesterday declared themselves ready for the Nestle sponsored National Association of Primary School Heads (Naph) track and field championships scheduled for next week.
All the 10 provinces are expected to take part in the event.
Naph president Cynthia Khumalo said Hwange is ready to play host to the event and preparations are at an advanced stage.
“We are now ready for the nationals, Hwange have done all the preparations and I’m happy to declare that they are ready for the games.
“It’s good that for the first time championships have moved from the National Sports Stadium, we want to make it a big theme ‘A Healthy mind in a healthy body.’
“We are happy Nestle Zimbabwe will continue to sponsor us, they are making this event a success and it gives an opportunity for children to make names for themselves,” said Khumalo.
Naph will be selecting a team to represent them at the Confederation of Schools Sports Association of Southern Africa (Cossasa) track and field championships set for Botswana next month.
“We want to select a team that will travel to Botswana for the Cossasa Games, so every pupil should come and compete knowing that they are fighting to represent Zimbabwe at the next stage,” she said.
The Naph boss also challenged provinces to ensure children apply for passports in time so that those selected into the national team, travel with ease.
Last year Zimbabwe took a longer route to Namibia, opting to go via Zambia instead of Botswana who could not accept emergency travel documents.
“We don’t want to have any problems pertaining to travelling documents when the team is about to travel for Cossasa Games, so all athletes should start applying for passports now,” she said.
She urged parents to support their children participating in the games.
“Parents should support these children, we don’t want a case where the parents are refusing their children to take part in sport, like we have witnessed in the past and should come in numbers to watch their children in action,” said Khumalo.
Athletes will be competing in Physical Education (PE) and field events on day one while track events will be on the second day.
Bulawayo Province started their preparations for the inter-provincials on Monday while Matabeleland South had their inter-district competitions on Thursday.
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