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Lovemore Dube
ZIMBABWE’S top sprinters — Tapiwanashe Makarawu and Makanakaishe Charamba — have for the second week running maintained their slot among the eight fastest times over 200m in the world.
Both have qualified for this year’s Paris Olympics through their personal best of the season and both times are better than the previous national record of 20.05 seconds that was held by Brian Dzingai.
Dzingai ruled the roost for almost two decades before these two emerged in the last two months to lay a claim of being hopefuls for the country, in many years to come, given they are below 24.
Makarawu the fastest Zimbabwean over the distance, ran a blistering time of 19.93 seconds to shatter Dzingai’s record at the Terry and Linda Fuller T and F Complex, Florida, in the United States.
He finished first.
His time is the fourth best of the season, with other athletes having posted 19.67s, 19.71s and 19.75s.
Charamba has not disappointed either.
His 20 seconds flat is the world’s eighth best time of the year.
It was achieved at the Percy Beard Track in Gainesville, Florida, in the US, on May 11.
Kenneth Bednarek has run the fastest time of the year of 19.67s.
Courtney Lindsey, another US athlete, has the second fastest effort having run 19.71s in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 20 this year.
Bongani Ndlovu
Mathew Masinge