Naaz releases provisional calendar

Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) has released its provisional calendar for the 2021 season with the association hoping to retain some of its major events that they failed to hold this year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Athletics is one of the sport codes that were given the green light to resume activities and Naaz has already put plans for the upcoming year. In Bulawayo, the Bulawayo Athletics Board (BAB) Cross Country Championships will open proceedings on January 16, at the traditional venue Mpopoma Park.

The first track and field event of the year will take place at White City Stadium on February 6. The month of April will see BAB play host to the PPC Matopos 33 Miler, Naaz national junior championships as well as the traditional ZITF Coca-Cola Four Minute miler.

Races such as the Nkulumane Half Marathon, Rail Trail Marathon and Liquor Hub fun run are all scheduled to take place during the 2021 athletics season.

BAB chairman, Watson Madanyika said: “We are excited about the upcoming year, (this) year was not the best of years with events getting cancelled. Hopefully next year things will normalise and we will be able to hold our events.

The major goal is ensuring that we have athletes qualifying for the Olympics.”

A decision was made on March 24, 2020, to postpone the Tokyo Games for the first time since the Second World War that they had been moved or delayed. The games are now scheduled to take place in July next year.

While qualifying events for marathons opened on December 1, qualifying for track and field events opened in September.

Meanwhile, online registration for the annual Liquor Hub 10km fun run is in progress with fees pegged at US$5 or $500 for seniors, US$3 or $300 for juniors and US$2 or $200 for the charity walk.

The event which was scheduled for December 6 was postponed to early next year. Organisers of the event were advised that it would be difficult to control people in the city centre and they should seek an alternative venue if they wish to proceed with the event and they opted to put it on hold. – @innocentskizoe