adminEllina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
FOLLOWING an impressive outing by Team Zimbabwe at the Africa Championships, Triathlon Zimbabwe say will continue to push for the growth of the sport.
The Zimbabwe team won five medals, including four from the youth categories and one from the junior section.
Triathlon Zimbabwe president, David Ellis, said they want to build a strong base of athletes.
“It is an ongoing exercise with our organisation, to build a strong base of athletes,” he said.
“Our tri-tots, tri-kids and tri-sports categories, which have continued to be popular at our events, encourage participation from a young age.
“We will keep the impetus, in these categories, but also refocus on duathlon for the winter season, and into the summer series, as well.
“This attracts competitors, who do not like the swimming element, of our sport.
“This is a popular derivative of our sport, in other countries, but has floundered in popularity and participation, over the last few years.
“It also is a good conduit for triathlon participation. This goes the same for aquathlon, which excludes the bike section, of triathlon.
“This has been compromised due to the schools series being cancelled, as a result of Covid-19 suspending school sports.”
The new board is meeting this Saturday in Harare for the first time since their election last month.
The meeting will see them making appointments for their various commissions and probably deciding when they will start their duathlon events.
“We meet this week and then there is a whole lot of appointments, which have to be made, like the national coach, the schools commission, technical commission, athletes liaison, et cetera.
“There are a few positions that we appoint and then we task those people with various elements of the sport.
“So, from there, we have already had some discussions of how we are going to put this together, we will then decide when the first events will start to take place.
“We will refocus this year, a lot more on duathlon, we have got somebody who is going to take it over, and drive it.
“It’s quite a popular sport overseas, in South Africa the duathlon championships are quite popular.”
After some positive responses, from corporates which had their teams participating in the events held by the national association, last season, Ellis noted they are going to channel more energy towards schools.
“We will try to do some more work in the schools.
“It’s been difficult, obviously, with Covid, the athletes liaison person and schools commission head will go into the schools, we can do presentations to them to show them what we are all about,” said Ellis.
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