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Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) has come up with a “home-grown” solution which they hope will nurture athletes who will grace big stages in the sport.
Naaz has long focused on ensuring athletes access scholarship opportunities abroad, mostly in the United States of America but the association’s president, Tendai Tagara said this has not yielded the desired results.
Tagara said while a few athletes have gone on to hog the international limelight after earning scholarships such as Ngoni Makusha, most are obscure, failing to make it to world junior events.
“The United States has the best of facilities in terms of overall sports science, nutrition, facilities and training but we have not been reaping much from the athletes based there. While many go on scholarships few ever emerge on the international stage.
“We felt there is a need to change our approach hence we decided to come up with what we call a ‘home-grown solution’, where we will train the athletes here and then thrust them onto the international stage hence our decision to capacitate coaches,” he said.
Tagara was speaking on the sidelines of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAf) Coach Education and Certification System (Cecs) Level 2 Jumps Course that ended in Bulawayo on Thursday.
The course, which began last Friday, saw 17 participants drawn from across the country being taken through lectures and practicals by IAAF senior lecture, German, Ralf Iwan and Tagara.
“We made an effort to ensure there is a coach from each province attending to ensure we have widespread coaching and there would be no province that lacks expertise,” he said.
Iwan said for Zimbabwe to succeed on the international athletes’ stage they would need to combine coach education with talent identification and high performance training.
He said he was impressed with the class which he revealed showed great commitment, were very engaged and active during the practicals and lecturers.
“The coaches have a good background and I showed that they are all eager and keen to learn and develop themselves and athletes.
“However, it will take more training coaches for the country to achieve success as there needs to be in place a holistic talent identification programmes and high performances training for athletes,” he said.
Iwan, whose protégés include German pole vaulter, Lars Börgeling, while it was good Naaz has lined up top level IAAF courses, talent identification needs to begin at the ages of 12 to 14 during existing competitions.
He added there is need to implement a broader talent identification that focused not only on youths and cadets taking part in athletics but in other sports as well.
“A young athlete can be playing football, basketball or rugby and be average in that sport but as a coach you see that he can achieve more in sprints, jumps or throws you would need to recruit them,” said Iwan.
The German trainer has international experience, having worked in various countries that include the United Kingdom, South Africa, Singapore and Qatar, he is currently based in Berlin working for the German Athletics Federation and lecturing at various universities across the country.
Online Reporter