NAAZ seek to maintain order

Sports Reporter

WITH the 2024 season drawing closer, the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe have indicated they will be getting tough with athletes and organisations that run competitions without clearance as they seek to maintain order within the sport.

NAAZ president Tendayi Tagara said they have had challenges when athletes travel outside the country without clearance or compete in unsanctioned races.

The season gets underway early next month.

“We are going to be tough on athletes who skip the border. When they meet challenges they seek the association’s support. We want them to have annual clearance rather than one event.

“We are asking them to be cleared from January to December. They only pay US$20 for the whole year, for January to December, and as many races.

“They just indicate where they will be running and we clear them for the whole year, one clearance per year and they are done. But (the problem) is they wait until they have to go and participate in races. When they win and then fail to get prize money because they have no clearance, they then look for the association to assist.

“We are going to be tough on organisations that want to organise events without clearance. We have athletes killed, disabled, and failing to get paid. When all this happen government through SRC (Sports Commission) they expect NAAZ to be accountable. Some are running (competitions) under the guise of ‘fun run’.

“As long as you run outside your premises, we are accountable and must be cleared. We are encouraging the police not to clear road races when the organiser has no letter of clearance from NAAZ,” Tagara said.

Going into 2024, the national association is looking at continuing with their collaborations with schools for grassroots development and capacity development of coaches to improve the quality of athletes and competition.

“We are looking at collaborations with schools as the backbone of our youth and juniors, train more high level coaches and have more competitions.

“We want to improve on governance in all provinces as well and we are targeting high quality competitions as both juniors and seniors chase qualifying standards. We want our coaches to be trained and work with their athletes, and hold national camps.”

Tagara said they are hopeful of the forthcoming season with the triangular series sponsored by Baldmin Holdings being one of the highlights for the year.

A number of organisers for road races have also come on board to have their competitions included on the national calendar.

“Quite a number (of organisers) have shown interest because this demand that they must be registered to run events has forced many of them to be on the calendar.

“We also have, I think about two mines that wrote to us indicating they have formed athletics clubs, so they want to host events next year. To us it’s a good beginning towards chamber of mines,” said Tagara.

NAAZ athletes commission chairperson Dickson Kamungeremu said they welcome the move by the national association as it will ensure accountability.

“It is important to understand that athletes need to go and compete outside the country to get times and money because the country is unable to provide the aforementioned.

“However, as the (athletes) commission, we aim to balance the needs of the athletes as well as compliance to administrative issues. So we urge athletes to con-form to the dictates set by NAAZ in ensuring that they seek proper clearance procedures.

“This (will) go a long way in ensuring we have accountability. We are, however, also trying to ensure that NAAZ expedites the process so that athletes get the necessary clearance in time to enable them to compete,” Kamungeremu said.