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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
JUNIOR athletes chasing qualification to the World Athletics Under-20 Championships will tomorrow have an opportunity to try their luck when they take part at the National Junior Championships at White City Stadium.
The meet is being organised by the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe.
It will be used as a selection platform, for a team to represent the country at the World Under-20 Championships, in Nairobi, Kenya, from August 17 to 22.
NAAZ director for coaching, talent identification and development, Lisimati Phakamile, said this was just the beginning, of their selection process.
“This meeting is very important to us as we are going to use it as one of the key selection platforms for juniors,” he said.
”And, it’s actually the main one because here we are expecting to have juniors only competing, and battling it out, for a place at the World Junior Championships.
“And, again, we might be having some other major competitions coming up during the course of the year, so we want to have a strong team that is selected on performance at the Bulawayo race.
”So, this competition is very important and is a very key event for our selection.
“Our process of selection will not be in Bulawayo only but it will be an ongoing process up to until when we get to the point where we say we have come to the main competition that we have been selecting athletes for.”
Some of the juniors had the chance of competing at the National Open Championships, last month, and will be hoping to take their game to the next level.
“We are basically looking at a good quality number of athletes that we can send to Kenya.
”Remember, the World Championships are now close and it’s actually not very expensive for a nation like Zimbabwe to send a big number.
“So, we are going to be looking at the number of quality qualifications.
”We are saying quality qualifications because if athletes can get close to the qualification they will not have qualified.
“But, if athletes qualify with a chance of getting a medal or reaching the podium at that world stage, then we are expecting to have a good number of athletes travelling to Kenya.
”We want many athletes to qualify and we are hoping that we will be able to finance them all to the World Championships.
“Our athletes have been training at their clubs and remember athletics is a low risk sport which was allowed to practice a while ago.”
He encouraged coaches, clubs and athletes to attend tomorrow’s meet.
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