Online Reporter
Howard Musonza
Zimpapers Group Sports Editor
At the age of four, Zahara Mushonga walked into a gym and stopped in awe.
The room felt enormous. Bodies twisted through the air, flipping and landing as if gravity had briefly loosened its grip. She stood still, watching, a serious question forming in her mind.
“How do these people walk and twist like that?”
It was not fear that held her there, but wonder.
Gymnastics slipped into her life quietly from that moment. First as curiosity, then routine, before growing into something deeper that settled in her veins. By the time she turned eight, she was training properly.
Fast forward to age 13, and Zahara was standing on a big stage in Namibia, wrapped in Zimbabwean colours.
As she sang the national anthem at the Region Five Gymnastics Championships, she knew her journey there had happened because belief had travelled faster than money.
Before the medals and the scores, Zahara was still very much a schoolgirl.
She had just written her Grade Seven examinations, passing with seven units, with English and Social Science among her favourite subjects. Outside the gym, her life was just as full.
She played volleyball, was the best swimmer at Livingstone Primary School, and captained the school’s debate team. She also made time for Cooking, Drama, Dance, Guitar and Chess clubs.
Excelling on all fronts, she won the Sportsmanship Award in both 2024 and 2025. Next year, she will start Form One at Oakwood.
Gymnastics has been the constant thread holding everything together. It taught her how to balance a packed schedule in the same way she balanced on the apparatus as she twisted, flipped and landed.
A normal training day began with school, followed by clubs, then a hurried change of clothes in the car as her mother drove her to the gym. Five hours of conditioning, strength, flexibility, beam work, floor routines, backflips and jumps followed.
Every apparatus. Every skill. Repeated until muscle memory carried what the mind sometimes questioned.
What Zahara loves most about gymnastics is the freedom.
“I’m able to literally fly,” she says. “I can move my body and just feel free.”
What unsettles her is quieter and heavier, the fear of something going wrong and not being able to pull it back.
“Mental blocks,” she calls them. The invisible kind.
Her coach noticed something early.
Arthur Tinashe Mushingaidzwa, head coach at Dalesnastics Gymnastics Club, first met Zahara in early 2022, shortly after she relocated from South Africa, where she had begun her gymnastics journey at Wanderers Gymnastics Club.
The foundation was clear from the start. Strong basics. Natural strength. Body awareness.
But something else stood out.
Her focus and coachability.
The way Zahara absorbed corrections quickly and trained with a calm competitiveness that felt older than her years caught his attention.
“That told me immediately she had potential,” he says.
At this level, expectations are handled carefully. Development comes first. Technique, consistency, mental growth and progress matter more than perfection, the coach says, adding that protecting a child’s love for the sport is critical.
Namibia was meant to be another step forward, yet it nearly did not happen.
When the selection letter arrived, Zahara’s mother, Samantha Shitto, read it with pride. Then the excitement faded.
The costs were steep, and the national association could not afford the trip.
“My heart dropped that day,” Shitto says.
Time was short. Options were few. Eventually, she started a GoFundMe.
Asking for help did not come easily, especially as a single mother quietly wondering if she was doing enough. But what followed surprised her.
Friends, strangers and a community that believed in Zahara came together. In just 21 days, enough money was raised and the dream was revived.
“I could not believe that I had made it,” Zahara recalls. “The community, friends and family all came together to see my dream come true.”
Joy came first. Then tears.
She had travelled before, to South Africa for a gymnastics camp, but this felt different.
This time she was competing internationally, in a different country, and without her coach, who could not travel with the team.
Her usual training partners were not there either.
Still, wearing the Zimbabwean tracksuit, embroidered with the national flag, felt unreal.
“It was like a movie scene,” she says .
The day before competition, athletes trained in the same gym that would host the event. For the first time, the floor felt harder than expected, with less bounce.
On the beam, trouble arrived quietly. Zahara twisted her ankle. She felt little pain at first, but by the next day, discomfort had set in.
Motivated by a deep-seated desire to represent her country, she competed anyway.
Ignoring the pain, she completed the competition with composure and courage.
On the big day, she brushed shoulders with gymnasts from across the region. She picked up lessons, made friends and settled in quickly.
The conditions were tough. High temperatures drained energy, exhaustion crept in, and at one point, flash floods swept through the area.
Yet she pushed on.
Before mounting the bars, she whispered to herself.
“Zahara, you got this.”
She did.
Her bar routine earned a 9.95. Clean. Confident. Smooth transitions. Strong kip-ups. Very few visible errors. She stayed composed from start to finish.
When she dismounted, her body shook as nerves, adrenaline and relief collided.
One apparatus down. Three to go.
The beam, however, was unforgiving. Gymnasts from South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe all fell. Zahara did not record a score.
“The beam humbled me,” she says with a small laugh.
Her coach sees it differently.
“The beam tests the mind more than the body,” Mushingaidzwa says. “Mistakes teach resilience, emotional control and recovery. Those moments shape stronger athletes.”
Behind the scenes, Zahara handled it with maturity.
Disappointed, yes, but she did not dwell on it. She refocused and moved on.
That response, her coach says, reveals future potential.
Vault and floor brought her back. Despite the sore ankle, she stuck her first tumbling pass, a front flip she had not landed cleanly all week.
Vault was tough and the competition fierce, but she was proud to be there.
Floor is where she feels most like herself, where expression and movement flow naturally.
“Being 13 on that stage was nerve-wracking,” she says. “Most of my competitors were older, but they made me feel like I belonged.”
What Namibia taught her surprised her.
“I’m stronger than I think I am,” she says.
From the sidelines, her mother could do little but trust.
“All I could do was trust her,” Samantha says.
The experience pushed Zahara harder. It taught her mother something too, about opportunity, and how many talented gymnasts are left behind when funding runs out before belief does.
Region Five, she says, is a crucial stepping stone. It exposes athletes to international judging standards, higher execution demands and pressure environments.
Zahara’s showing carried that truth. Quiet progress. Breakthrough moments. Depth surfacing even when re-sources are thin.
Her journey sat within a wider team effort that hinted at what is possible when talent is allowed to travel.
For Zahara, gymnastics is not a phase.
“It’s my first love,” she says. “I don’t think I can ever let it go.”
And if another 13-year-old girl is watching her now, she hopes she understands this most of all.
