Mat North’s Masuku happy

Allen Khumalo Sports Reporter
MATABELELAND North Sports and Recreation Commission provincial coordinator Newman Masuku has expressed pleasure at the performance of his team at the 2016 Youth Games in Chinhoyi despite being lowly placed.

Matabeleland North were seventh overall with three gold, four silver and five bronze medals.

Masuku said this was commendable taking into account the scarce resources at their disposal.

“I am in a celebratory mood because we managed to assemble a competitive team with little resources.

“To some people this might not be a big achievement, but looking at where we are coming from as a province, we are proud.

“We are just a few gold medals from the top teams,” said Masuku.

“We have always occupied the last position in previous games and it’s only last year that we managed to take ninth place.

“This time we steadily rose two places to seventh and we want to maintain this momentum. Our 12 medals show that we have potential to move up the ladder.”

Calous Ncube scooped gold in boxing and has been selected into Team Zimbabwe for the African Union Sports Council Region Five Games to be held in Angola. Greater Ndlovu is also in Team Zimbabwe.

Masuku said they had the least number of athletes at the games, with 30 compared to other provinces.

“Host province Mashonaland West had the most number of athletes with about 240, followed by Manicaland, which shows that we did well with our few.”

Medals table

Mashonaland West 34

Bulawayo 30

Masvingo 25

Harare 23

Manicaland 21

Mashonaland East 13

Matabeleland North 12

Matabeleland South 10

Mashonaland Central 9