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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
EXPERIENCED Zimbabwe Rugby star Hilton Mudariki is excited to be part of the Cheetahs squad on a high-performance training camp in South Africa as part of the preparations for the 2023 Rugby Africa Men’s Sevens.
The 12-team tournament, to be hosted at Harare Sports Club on September 16-17, will double as the qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
And Zimbabwe are not leaving anything to chance ahead of the event as they have arranged a week-long training camp in Pretoria to polish up their preparations.
The group was dispatched to South Africa soon after featuring in the Zambezi Challenge that also involved regional teams from Botswana and Zambia at Harare sports Club last weekend.
Mudariki, who has captained both the Cheetahs and the Sables, has been included in the set up for his experience.
Speaking to Zimpapers Sports, the 31-year-old said he was keen on helping Zimbabwe reach the Olympics finals for the first time, with only one team expected to get an automatic qualification from the upcoming tournament.
“I’d put sevens aside for a couple of years just to focus on the 15s but having had a couple of conversations with (assistant) coach Ricky (Chirengende) over the last couple of months, he asked me whether I’d be interested in coming back and contributing in whatever way I could in helping the team qualify.
“It’s something that I couldn’t turn down. Having just missed out on the Olympics qualifiers in 2016 when we lost to Kenya and being a part of that, I thought that I had to come back and try and give back as much as I could, both on and off the field with the experience that I have had of having played in the final and having played on the world series against quality teams as well,” said Mudariki.
Zimbabwe will host some of the top countries on the continent that include Algeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
The winner will qualify for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and the second and third placed teams will get another chance in the 2024 Final Olympic Qualification Tournament. In addition, the top two teams will qualify for the 2024 Challenger Series.
Based on strength, South Africa are the top-ranked team at the tournament, fol-lowed by Kenya. Both ply their trade in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
Defending champions Uganda are also ranked highly, with Zimbabwe coming in fourth.
Rugby Afrique have drawn the groups, which will see South Africa, Madagascar, Tunisia and Côte d’Ivoire go head-to-head in Group A.
In Group B, Kenya will have the edge over Zambia, Namibia and Nigeria. Zimbabwe headline Pool C along with Uganda, Burkina Faso and Algeria.
Last time out, the Cheetahs finished third in the Olympic qualifiers and had another opportunity in the Repechage event, but they finished fifth.
“We gave a couple of foreign-based guys that can definitely contribute, add experience of having played all over the world. We have got some exciting youngsters as well that are locally based, that are coming through the Under-20s,” said Mudariki.
“We have a nice bunch of youth and experience which I think will help us and take us forward in qualifying. We believe that our chances are good. But for us it’s just about the process and working day in and day out and try and improve as much as we can, focusing on ourselves and not necessarily on other teams.
“I think that’s what this camp in south Africa is all about, just making sure that we fine tune the things that we need to fine tune. Obviously, we have just come from a tournament over the weekend, the Zambezi Challenge.
“We know that there are a lot of things that we need to fix. We are not a finished product yet. So, we have got almost two weeks to work. A week in Pretoria and then we get back to Harare where we can fine tune those little things that we need to sort out.
“But we are excited about the challenges. It’s good to be in South Africa in a high-performance environment, where we can just focus on our rugby, bond as a team and work together in order to reach our goal, which is to qualify for the Olympics. So we are very excited about the week ahead and we are looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead,” said Mudariki.
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