Officials, coaches training pays off for athletics

Ray Bande
Senior Reporter

NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (NAAZ) has successfully elevated the country’s athletics standards through concerted training and refresher courses.
This achievement was highlighted at the Paris Olympic Games, where Zimbabwe, alongside the United States of America, was one of the only two countries out of 214 to have two athletes competing in the 200m finals.
NAAZ president, Tendai Tagara, expressed the association’s commitment to further developing athletics nationwide.
“We will continue to conduct professional training courses for athletes across the country, ensuring that each zone has at least one qualified athletics tutor.
We are happy to announce that at least each province has now qualified officials and coaches, but we still need more. Our hope this year is to reach the district and zones to have qualified coaches and officials there. This means our athletes will be handled by qualified coaches and officials.
“In return, more participants will turn to athletics, which is one of the World Athletic Global Plan objectives. We have more than 10 000 registered schools in Zimbabwe, and our vision is to have one qualified coach at each school,” he said.
The former Mutare Polytechnic lecturer outlined the courses lined up for the 2025 calendar.
“The national athletics administration has commenced preparations for the athletics season. We have scheduled Coach Education and Certification Systems (CECS) and Technical Officials Education System (TOECS) courses in Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, and Masvingo.
“For Harare, the courses are for January 30 and February 1, Bulawayo (February 7 and 8), and Mutare (February 1 and 2). We will also have the TOECS course in Harare and Bulawayo on February 7 and 8.
“This is all meant to decentralised. We have said if 30 technical officials or coaches register for officials course or coaches course, we then say a class is there and people are trained in their province,” Tagara said.
The veteran athletics administrator, who was re-elected to lead the national association last year, highlighted the success of NAAZ programmes.
“The easy qualification of our juniors for global competitions is a testament to the impact of our programmes over the past decade, and we aim to maintain this momentum.
“Tatenda Makarawu is a product of this plan. Presently, we have more than 10 Under-22 athletes running in USA who have gone through our programmes and we are proud of that,” he said.
Tagara also spoke about the regional and global assignments that local athletes will represent the country in.
“We aim to surpass our previous achievements at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. We were extremely proud as a sports code. This year, we are developing coaches and officials to qualify for several key events.
“These include the Southern Region Games in Namibia in July, where Zimbabwe will send an Under-19 team, as well as the Africa Juniors in Algeria, World Relays in China in May, and the World Championships in Tokyo in August.
“We are also preparing a youth Olympic team for the 2026 Games in Senegal. Additionally, we will host the Southern Africa Senior Championships in July.
In all these events, we aim to make a lasting impression, which can only be achieved with professionally trained officials and coaches,” said Tagara.