Chronicle Editor
Lovemore Dube in Douala, Cameroon
EXPECTING to qualify for the Olympics a few days before close of the window is not the most ideal of situations as it puts athletes under immense pressure.
Zimbabwe silver medallist in the triple jump Chengetai Mapaya whose medal winning effort was 16,87m, believes the Douala, Cameroon Athletics Senior Championships were a big lesson, a sentiment also shared by another medal winner Tapiwanashe Makarawu.
Mapaya missed the automatic ticket to Paris Olympics by 35cm. Makarawu was lucky though in that his silver winning time of 20,51 seconds was far off the mark in that he came here already assured of his place in the team.
“We need to take pressure off our shoulders and qualify before these competitions that come at the very end. You are bound to have pressure,” said Mapaya who is hopeful that he will stay among the world’s top 32 triple jumpers for 2024.
This may land him a ticket to Paris as he is at the moment the 29th best in the world. He has fought injury since 2022 and is happy to be bouncing back to the reckoning and dreams of bettering his 17,26m mark.
“It has not been easy coming from injury, I am happy with my recovery and distances, surely I can do far much better than this, the World Championships are coming up in 2025, I hope to be there,” said Mapaya.
Makarawu, with a sixth best time of 19,93 seconds in the world, a new national record set this year, said he was all out for national pride.
“I did not have pressure at all coming to these championships because I qualified early,” said Makarawu.
Pakamile Lisimati who was the coach of the silver medals winning team, said in future they will ensure their athletes qualify early. He however said this depends on funding to other qualifying competitions.
“With funding, our athletes can go to Botswana, South Africa and Zambia to try and qualify at a reasonable cost. We have the potential to get more athletes competing with the best in the world. Makarawu, Mapaya and Makanakaishe Charamba have shown that with their high world rankings. Others reached semi finals and Ashley Miller was fourth in the 400m hurdles, a sure sign of the quality we have as a country.
Charamba’s 19,95 seconds which qualified him for the Olympics in Paris next month is a world top 10 time of the year.
All things being equal he alongside Makarawu are expected to go beyond the semi-finals.
“We need funding for all these dreams to come true. There has to be investment by Government, local authorities, private companies and parents. Success is a meticulous process involving many stakeholders,” Lisimati said.
Most of the countries that were at the African Championships are funded by the State and private sector.
“Now that we are from the African Championships, we have the World Championships in Tokyo next year and Olympics in Los Angeles, we will not rest, we want to make a big mark with our athletes whose age of 21-24 leaves them with many major events ahead to participate in. But judging from past experiences about these African Championships, we fail athletes in the manner we run the event. They tend to be so shambolic that athletes may opt not to run there,” said Lisimati amid word that World Athletics will not consider standards attained at the meeting because of poor time keeping and other protocol for events of that nature.
The Zimbabwe team left in the morning via South Africa.
Mapaya flew straight to the US on Wednesday night.
Online Reporter