Chronicle EditorEllina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe president Tendai Tagara has hailed the just-ended National Youth Games saying it provided a platform to choose their team for next year’s Zone Six Youth Games.Participants competed in seven sporting disciplines including athletics and the NAAZ president said the Games are contributing in the development of athletics with Ngoni Makusha and Gabriel Mvumvure being some of the athletes that came through the platform.
Tagara said this year they used the Games to select a provisional team as they begin their preparations for the regional Games to be hosted by Bulawayo next year.
“It’s a good platform, the advantage of the National Youth Games, especially for this year, was that we did not send the Under-20 but Under-19s, it was a deliberate plan towards the 2014 Zone Six.
“We are the only association that has selected their provisional team of 65 athletes for the 2014 Zone Six.
“In December it will be brought down to 50 and we will have another camp in April where we will bring it down to 45,” said Tagara. Tagara also said the Games could contribute more in the development of athletics if they can have a much younger age group.
“The Youth Games are the only platform I saw that the Government has vision in sport development.
“At least if we can have the Under-18 so that we have two to three years of monitoring them, that’s how we can manage development. We will be targeting a star competition in Harare and a star competition in Bulawayo because of the tartan track but for endurance competition at the early start of the season we can have the competition in the Midlands and other provinces can have provincial competitions.
“Each province can run a provincial competition to which they invite others but we are saying we can’t have a qualifying competition in sand and when they go for international competition they run on a tartan track.
“We have talked with the international federation to say on our grant can you take some money and provide us with the best electronic timing for sprinters and they agreed after I met the director of development in Moscow,” he said.
“We are in the process of working out the papers so that they prepare us the best and I think by next year we should have an electronic timing through IAAF. They said we can pay the money in three years so we are working on the modalities,” said Tagara.
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