Preparations hot up

The youth championships are slated for May 23 and 24 in Pretoria, South Africa, with athletes from Southern Africa expected to take part.

The inter-provincials will see the youth, juniors and seniors battling it out in track and field events.
National Head coach, Briad Nhubu, said they were still compiling the final team to represent the nation in South Africa and most of the athletes will be competing on Saturday.

“We are in the process of compiling the names, we have quite a number that have responded.
“We have encouraged most of the athletes to be there so that we prepare for the competition.

“We won’t be able to have camp since schools have just opened,” said Nhubu.
Nhubu said Saturday’s event will help the athletes to fine-tune their preparations and most of them will be hoping to qualify for the World Championships scheduled for Ukraine in July.

“We are looking at sending around 24 athletes. We have attached them to their local coaches and we are making follow ups on individuals.
“At the moment we have a provisional team of 18 boys and 18 girls and from those we have been getting response that some parents have agreed for their children to compete.

“Definitely this is going to be very important meeting for them to compete with the juniors, they will give them a tough competition to improve their times and to work hard rather than having them competing on their own without competition. They need to improve on their efforts,” Nhubu said.

The national head coach youth said besides winning medals in South Africa they will be hoping that their athletes qualify for the world championships.
“I am expecting us to bring back some medals to Zimbabwe. I understand from the previous competitions the athletes are inspired to compete, they want to meet the time for the world championships.

“We already have five athletes who have qualified, one qualified in Nigeria at the Africa Youth championships and the other four qualified during the Cossasa championships. I think with this South Africa meet we would have more qualifying.

“We are looking more in the field events,” said Nhubu.
Five athletes that have qualified are Yvonne Vanhuvaone, Nyasha Mutsetse, Ruvarashe Muzinde, Michael Songore and Daniel Chidavaenzi.