NAAZ begin preps for Southern Region Youth Championships

nine countries — Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland — have confirmed their participation.
Naaz president, Joseph Mungwari said they are using the event to prepare for next year’s Zone Six and the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games to be held in Nanjing, China.
“The purpose for us wanting to host this event is that Zimbabwe is going to host next year’s Zone Six championships so we want this as a test run for our officials, we want to sharpen their skills because the large contingent in the Zone Six is in athletics.
“We are using the Southern region championships so that we have enough time to re-organise all areas we see that we have weaknesses.
“It’s purely for developmental of our officials to officiate in international competitions,” said Mungwari.
Mungwari said the championships are an opportunity for exposure for the young up and-coming athletes and they are hoping to field a team of more than 20 athletes.
“Our athletes have just come back from Namibia and we are having an opportunity to field more youths in international events.
“We want to have as many youths as possible participating.
“The youth championships are tricky to make predictions because everything depends on how a country runs its developmental programmes from grassroots.
“But we have good depth in terms of our athletes and we proved that when we were in Namibia and got 12 medals,” said Mungwari.
Zimbabwe sent a 22-member team to compete in Namibia and two athletes – Tinashe Mutanga and Dumisani Bhebhe — qualified for the World Junior Championships scheduled for Barcelona
The Naaz president said they have raised part of the funds to cater for the event.
“The competition of this magnitude needs a lot of money. So far we have managed to raise US$10 000 but we need around US$25 000 to successfully host the event. Nine countries have confirmed their participation while countries like Madagascar, Comoros and Seychelles are yet to confirm and these are countries that don’t usually participate in the regional competition because of some problems they face,” said Mungwari.
Lismati Phakamisa will be in charge of the team.