Team Zim struggles at African Games

Sports Reporter
THE African Games came to an end over the weekend with Zimbabwe managing to pick only four medals from the event. The showcase was held from August 16 to 31 in Morocco.
Team Zimbabwe competed in 12 sport codes of the 26 codes that were on offer.

Ten of the disciplines Zimbabwe participated in were Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualifiers.
Zimbabwe’s four medals — one silver and three bronze — came from chess, swimming and triathlon. One of the biggest disappointments was athletics, which had the largest number of athletes, 15, who competed in track and field events but failed to pick a single medal. Before leaving for Morocco athletics coach Lisimati Phakamile said he was expecting, at least, five medals from the team.

But he said injuries suffered by the likes of sprinters Tatenda Tsumba and Dickson Kamungeremu contributed to the team’s failure to challenge for medals.

Apart from their individual races the two were key members of the 4x100m relay team that was also a medal hopeful.

In 2015 Zimbabwe picked nine medals at the 11th edition of the Games.
The medals included three gold.

Sports Commission corporate communications officer, Tirivashe Nheweyembwa, admitted some of the disciplines could not live up to expectations.

“There was huge expectation, especially on athletics, however, this was not to be while tennis, which was also one of our medal hopefuls, stumbled,’’ he said.

“This was mainly because of two factors, our players are not used to play on clay court surfaces and, in most instances, they were fixture to play in the scorching heat of Morocco and this really drained them.

“Observations made are that Team Zimbabwe was largely made up of athletes who are in transition from junior to senior sport.

‘’The average age of most of the athletes was 16 to 21 and this presents us with an excellent opportunity to improve on the performances in the next Games.

“We need to ensure that the current crop of athletes in most sport codes are kept together, receive high level coaching and exposure to the right level of competition.’’