Vusumuzi Dube
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
THE five other officials that are travelling to Japan for the Tokyo Olympics have been revealed.
While Team Zimbabwe is made up of five athletes as well as eight athlete support personnel, there are other five officials also heading off to Japan from Zimbabwe.
Going as part of the country delegation is the Sports and Recreation Commission chairman Gerald Mlotshwa, Mathias Tongofa the chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation as well as Tariro Kadzingire, the personal assistant to the Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Kirsty Coventry.
From the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, president Thabani Gonye and chief executive officer Stephen Mudawarima who also doubles up as the ZOC secretary general are heading off to Japan.
“The Government delegation is travelling under the National Olympic Committee transferable guests accreditation. The IOC approved accreditation guidelines allow NOCs to invite Key Stakeholders to the games. Transferable means they will all not be there at the same time but one after the other.
“The invited guests are the chairman of the SRC and the chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation. These are key positions which have a serious bearing on the trajectory of our sport. The Olympic Games provide the biggest opportunity and exposure to observe best practice and world class standards,’’ said ZOC.
On the inclusion of Tongofa, ZOC said this came from an understanding that there is a need to expose the country’s legislature to high performance sport as well as its requirements, something that has been ignored when it to comes budget allocation.
“Team Zimbabwe in its travelling entourage to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has included in its delegation the Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Committee, Honourable Tongofa.
“The inclusion of the Portfolio Committee Chairperson stemmed from the realization of the need to expose our legislative support systems to high performance sport and its standard requirements which have been perennially underestimated in terms of budgetary support. It also emanates from the need for experiential learning by way of participation for informed guidance and legislative support of sport development and promotion,’’ ZOC said.
According to ZOC, the president and secretary general for all NOCs under the International Olympic Committee attend Olympic Games as the NOC delegation notwithstanding athlete participation at the games and are thus not included in the overall team computations.
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Bongani Ndlovu