Selection day for team to African Championships

Ashley Miller

THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) is today set to announce the team for the 2026 Senior African Championships to be held in Ghana beginning next week on Tuesday.

Phakamile Lisimati, the national teams coach disclosed on Sunday while in Botswana soon after finishing fifth in the 4x400m relay in the World Relays on Sunday.

“Team will probably be announced on Tuesday. Tomorrow (Monday) I will be on the road then on Tuesday I announce,” said Lisimati.

He was yesterday set to get Naaz’s position on the actual numbers accommodated at this year’s event.

“Waiting for tickets confirmation as well tomorrow (Monday),” Lisimati had said while in Gaborone on Sunday.

By finishing fifth, Zimbabwe made history at that level of competition, on a weekend the team qualified for the 2027 Beijing World Championships and set a national record of 2 minutes 59.01 seconds. The time bettered the 3:00.69 set last month in Botswana as Zimbabwe ranked 13th among the teams that qualified for the 2026 World Relays.

In the final won by Botswana, Zimbabwe clocked 2 minutes 59.79 seconds, the second time that the team ran a sub three minutes 4x400m relay.

Lisimati indicated that another inhibiting factor is the non-availability of US universities athletes due to athletics commitments there. Their season is on and the contracts with their colleges is that university sports comes first.

Against that background, Naaz did well to send locally based athletes to run the 4x400m qualifying events for the World Relays and World Championships.

For the first time ever, Zimbabwe finds itself in a position of over a dozen of athletes, who have qualified for the African Championships by measure of the continental body and also by the national association’s own high standards.

In the men’s 100m, whose qualifying standard set by the Confederation of African Athletics, of 10.2 seconds, Tapiwanashe Makarawu’s 10.10 seconds is good enough for him to be considered. There were fair attempts towards qualifying by Methembe Tshuma (10.22), Makanakaishe Charamba (10.23), Denzel Simusialela (10.25), Carlton Siwela (10.32), Tafadzwa Chikomba (10.33), Daniel Magogo (10.34) and Tinashe Chigudu (10.39).

This points to a potentially explosive 4x100m relay team, if resources and circumstances allowed, would bid at some events for the World Championships and 2028 Olympics.

Naaz had also set its own criteria of 10.2 seconds.

Lisimati has the two Olympic athletes, Charamba and Makarawu, who are frontrunners in the 200m in which Naaz set the bar at 20.95 seconds. The African body set 20.95 seconds as the qualifying standard for the half-lap event.

Another athlete in the lead is Simusialela, who has run the fastest 200m of this year among the Zimbabwean elite group. His season’s best is 20.09 seconds that places him on 14th in the world.

Methembe Tshuma a locally based athlete clocked 20.26 seconds, Charamba (20.27), Siwela (20.63), Dennis Hove (20.69), Alpha Mpofu (20.71), Daniel Magogo (20.96), Takudzwa Pahuma (20.99) and Tinashe Chigudu (21.00) have qualified in accordance with African athletics standards.

Some of these guys could even make the 4x100m relay quartet.

In the 400m flat race, Lisimati has five athletes, who have run below the Naaz bar of 45.80 seconds and African 46.50 seconds.

Thandazani Ndhlovu (44.71), Leeford Zuze (44.91), Hove (45.00), Alpha Mpofu (45.50) and Siwela (45.53) are up for consideration.

Long jumper Tafadzwa Chikomba’s 8.25m makes him among the favourites. He is well over the 7.90m required limit.

In the triple jump, two athletes, Chengetai Mapaya (16.85m) and Theophillus Mudzengerere (16.83m) have exceeded the 16.60m qualifying standard.

Ashley Miller has qualified for the 100 and 400m hurdles and her 200m time is also within range.

Two athletes in the women’s category have qualified with Vimbai Maisvorewa (51.66) and Ntokozo Ncube 52.08 seconds.

Lisimati has a pool of athletes whose majority are under 24 and still have a bright future in the sport.
Godwin Katakura is the country’s most notable road runner with a time of 2 hours 08 minutes 47 seconds achieved on April 14.