adminEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
JOE Rugwete retained his position as the Zimbabwe Karate Union president on Saturday after winning elections held during their general meeting at Triangle Country Club. Rugwete amassed 41 votes to beat his challenger Joshua Kumire, who had one vote, and will lead the karate mother body for the next two years.
It will be his second term in office after taking over from Simba Chikutu in January last year. Rugwete said he wants to continue improving the state of karate in the country and ensuring the sport realises its full potential.
“It puts a lot of pressure because we don’t want to do less than what we have done in the past two years.
“What we have done in the past two years is to increase our presence in the region and we have established our presence at the World Championships.
“We created world champions, so we don’t want to start building from that,” said Rugwete.
Rugwete said they hope to implement the four-year strategic plan they came up with this year.
“We are looking at increasing our participation on the continent. We have got the Junior African Championships, the All-Africa Games and the Senior African Championships.
“We also need to look at junior development. We would like to work on that in conjunction with the National Association of Secondary Schools Heads, the National Association of Primary Schools Heads and Universities.
“At the moment, there is no deliberate co-ordination between ourselves the national association and those associations.
“In terms of sponsorship our economic environment is preventing companies from investing in sport. For the past two years, we have been relying on our membership so we will continue doing that until things get better for us,” said Rugwete.
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu