Stage set for Cossasa Championships

ONCE again Zimbabwe’s organisational capabilities in sport have been brought to the fore.

Arthur Maphosa, president of the Confederation of Schools Sport in Southern Africa, said that Zimbabwe appeared ready to play host to a good championship here in Bulawayo.

This was after a meeting they held as the regional body and had been briefed by the hosts about what is on the ground yesterday.

Bulawayo is hosting the regional track and field as well as ball games’ championships for schools in the Sadc Region which has attracted Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Initially Lesotho were due to hold the athletics championships in the first third of the year but faced challenges forcing them to forgo the meeting.

Zimbabwe who were the original hosts of the ball games then took over. After getting an all-clear from Government, Cephas Mutume and his colleagues then set about organising for both.

Maphosa in an interview with Zimpapers Sports confirmed that they had been charmed by the Zimbabweans’ preparations.

“I must say as Cossasa we are very touched indeed by the level of preparedness by the local organising committee. We pay tribute to them. We are seeing no obstruction against the success of the games,” said Maphosa.

School teams from Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia were expected to be all here last night.

“The teams have started arriving, Lesotho are at their base at Townsend High School, they arrived safely without any hindrances. Eswatini have crossed the border. As Cossasa executive we are happy with the level of preparedness that has been shown here in Bulawayo,” said Maphosa.

The regional games bring together primary and secondary school teams. They will compete in several disciplines among them athletics at White City, netball, basketball, soccer, tennis and handball.

Cossasa secretary-general, Letswele Jonas of Botswana, said the games had produced athletes that participated at this year’s Olympics.

Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo participated in the games in Nambia and Botswana in 2017 and 2018.

“There are so many produced by these games including Olympic 200m champion, Letsile and members of the Botswana 4x400m relay team at the Olympics,” said Jonas.

Zimbabwe 200m record holder Tapiwanashe Makarawu with a time of 19,93 seconds and finished a credible sixth at the Paris Olympics has also taken part in the games as has Chengetai Mapaya who missed qualification by a whisker and was rated 29th in the world in June in triple jump.

The regional competition starts tomorrow and ends on Thursday.