Pasipamire concerned

Sports Reporter

ATHELTICS coach, Cephas Pasipamire, says the cancellation and postponement of qualifying events will have a negative effect on athletes.

This might even end up affecting their performance when opportunities arise.

Pasipamire is one of the coaches leading marathon runners in their build-up for qualification to the Olympics.

They have had several programmes and last December they were in Vumba for a camp that lasted two weeks.

Pasipamire said most of the athletes he was working with were ready for competition but the challenge now was getting them into races.

“The challenge now is races are being cancelled, or postponed, and it’s becoming difficult, in terms of the training programme, because you have to be certain, in terms of when you are going to have a race.

“Most of the athletes I have are at the peak, they reached the fitness level to go and compete.

‘’So, the changes have a psychological effect and that will also end up affecting the body.

“You end up not seeing the progress because you design a programme with different stages like, for example, when we went to Vumba we were saying after working on endurance and strength, then speed, because you are looking forward to a race.

“This really affects the athletes because you are saying we are left with so much time before a race and then it’s postponed.

“So, you have to start again and you will even end up with injuries, that’s a challenge,” said Pasipamire.

The seasoned long distance runner added that the ongoing situation was likely to affect the athletes’ performance.

“Some of the athletes that had the potential to make the times may be affected in terms of their performance.

“I believe, right now, if it wasn’t for the postponements we would have three or four of our athletes qualifying for marathon.

“The other challenge now, with the lockdown, it’s difficult in terms of movements,” said Pasipamire.

Pasipamire has been working with a number of athletes, including Ngonidzashe Ncube, Isaac Mpofu and Olivia Chitate, at Morris Depot.

And, they were recently joined by Fortunate Chidzivo.

Chidzivo was in South Africa since early November last year, as part of her training programme, and she is back in the country.

She also worked with Pasipamire towards the World Half Marathon Championships last year.

The coach has indicated, from her time at the event, she stands a chance of meeting the qualifying time.

For women, the qualifying time is 2hours 29minutes 30seconds and for men it’s 2hours 11minutes 30seconds.