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Collin Matiza
Sports Editor
FORMER Zimbabwe star sprinter and 100m record holder, Fabian Muyaba, says he wants to help upcoming sprinters to get scholarships into the United States.
Muyaba, who is now back home after spending more than 25 years in the United States, wants to give back to the sport that helped him gain some fame in the ‘90s.
“I think it’s the right time for me to give back to the sport as I have a great network of so many coaches, at many universities, in the United States,’’ he told The Herald yesterday.
“The young athletes (in Zimbabwe) need to be provided an opportunity for a scholarship and I am ready to help facilitate that transition.
“There are so many avenues and I’m up for the challenge and so excited to groom the next crop of Zimbabwean athletes.
“My goal is to help these young teenagers get scholarships, and free education, in the United States.
“I would like to give them an opportunity to face the best because the NCAA is an amateur minor league and is the foundation for most World and Olympic Champions.
“We need our athletes to get some international exposure.’’
He said he returned home towards the end of 2019.
“But, I was so busy with business. Now, I have the time and am fired up to give back to the sport I love.’’
Muyaba, spent 10 years in prison in the United States, after being jailed for fraud, in what he concedes to be the darkest period of his life.
He was convicted on six counts of aiding, and assisting, in the preparation of presentation of false and fraudulent income tax returns.
However, he still maintains he was jailed for a crime he didn’t commit.
“I had a successful business in which I got indicted for conspiracy to prepare fraudulent tax returns,’’ he said.
‘’Knowing my innocence, I refused any plea deals and took my case to trial. I was found guilty and accepted that.
“I was then sentenced to prison for 10 years of which, through appeal, was able to drop some years.
“This was a dark moment in my life and I served my time. I still hold on to the truth of the case. I was convicted and it is past me. Am good and very grateful for life.
“We only have one life and I believe in giving it the best every day.”
Now 50, Muyaba is Zimbabwe’s finest ever sprinter, who competed in the men’s 100m competition at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
He recorded 10.84 seconds, not enough to qualify for the next round, past the heats.
His personal best is 10.15, set in 1991.
At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, he competed in both the 100m and 200m contests, coming home in 10.75s and 21.66s.
Muyaba then held the Zimbabwean 100m record, for almost 17 years, before it was broken by Gabriel Mvumvure in the mid-2000s.
He was then named the 14th fastest in the world and one of the fastest men to emerge from this country.
He was the second black Zimbabwean, after the legendary Artwell Mandaza, to represent the country at the Commonwealth Games and Olympics.
Muyaba, who passed through the hands of one of Zimbabwe’s best athletics coaches and administrators, Robert Mutsauki at ZRP Athletics Club, left the country in January 1991, after he got an athletics scholarship at Blinn Junior College in Texas, United States.
He later moved on to Louisiana State University.
A Zambian athlete, Sam Matete, who was studying at Blinn College, helped him to get a scholarship at that college, after he recommended him to his superiors.
During his stay in the United States, Muyaba once set a men’s 200m indoor Zimbabwe national record of 20.80 seconds on January 25, 1992, at Lubbock.
United States-based sprinter, Tinotenda Matiyenga, is the current holder of the Zimbabwe men’s indoor 200m national indoor record.
He smashed the record during the first day of the two-day Texas Tech Invitational track and field meet at Lubbock in Texas, United States, a fortnight ago.
Matiyenga (21), who is now a Senior at the Texas Christian University where he is on a four-year athletics scholarship, set alight his own national indoor record of 20.80 seconds, recorded February 14, 2020.
He won the men’s 200m event in a new time of 20.75 seconds during the Texas Tech Invitational indoor track and field event at Lubbock, which coincidentally is the same place, where Muyaba first set his 200m indoor national record of 20.80 on January 25, 1992.
“Yes, Robert (Mutsauki) was my coach at ZRP Athletics Club… He is a great man and we need people like Robert that are dedicated and love the sport,’’ said Muyaba.
“Am still in touch with him.”
Muyaba was spotted and nurtured by Mutsauki while he was still a pupil at Churchill High School in the late ‘80s.
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