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Grace Chingoma-Senior Sports Reporter
THE Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation have appointed Masimba Mutemaringa as the chef de Mission of Team Zimbabwe for the AUSC Region 5 Games that will be staged in Malawi in December.
Mutemaringa is an official in the Ministry’s sports department.
The Government has confirmed Zimbabwe’s participation in the 10th edition of the biennial Games that will run from December 2 to 11 in Lilongwe.
A total of 10 countries will battle for supremacy in 12 sporting disciplines – athletics, basketball, boxing, E-Sports, football, gymnastics, judo, netball, swimming, taekwondo, tennis and volleyball.
Zimbabwe will compete in 11 sport codes from the sporting codes that are available at the Games.
Football is suspended from international competitions, and both men’s and women’s Under-20 football teams will miss the games due to the FIFA ban.
The football tournaments in Malawi are serving as the regional qualifiers for next year’s African Games competitions and Zimbabwe have been excluded from participation. The football teams can only be included if the FIFA suspension is lifted before the Games.
However, this is highly unlikely since the Sports Commission have made it clear that they are not going to reinstate the former ZIFA board president Felton Kamambo and the trio of former executive members Philemon Machana, Bryton Malandule and Stanley Chapeta.
Team Zimbabwe have a total of 224 athletes, 52 team managers and coaches, 14 team management officials and 12 medical officials.
Zimbabwe have since submitted long list entries by number and long list entries by name to the African Union Sports Council Region.
A total of 20 female and 20 male athletes have been entered in athletics, while Visual Impaired has entered 10 males and the same number for females. Athletics age-group limit is athletes who are 19 years and were born between 2003 and 2004.
Basketball will be represented by 12 athletes in both men’s and women’s teams.
The athletes must have been born from January 1, 2007 and not later than 2008.
Boxing has entered six athletes in both the male and female categories and they must have been born in 2004 and 2005.
Four male gymnasts and four female gymnasts will compete in gymnastics and they must not be older than 19 years.
Judo has a total of 18 athletes and will have equal representation in the male and female categories. These athletes must have been born between 2003 and 2004. The netball team will have 12 players who must be 16 years by January 1, 2022.
Swimming has a strong delegation of 40 swimmers who are supposed to be below 20 years. Tennis has eight players who must be below 20 years before the competition. Volleyball teams will have 12 players each.
Team Zimbabwe is expected to finalise the final teams by early September.
Online Reporter