Tsholotsho ready for Nash games

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
TSHOLOTSHO district will this year play host to the National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash) track and field athletics competitions with Mavela and Tsholotsho High Schools being the hosting venues.

In an interview, Nash Matabeleland North head in charge of athletics, Thabani Nkomo of Dinyane High School, said the provincials will be held over two days from March 8-9 and all the seven districts are busy preparing for the provincial finals.

“As Tsholotsho district we will have our district finals on February 22-23 and we hope to use the meet as a dress rehearsal for the provincial competition. I believe all districts are raring to go as shown at our provincial council meeting last week.

“Besides the usual events, we also have a new mixed 4 x 400m all age groups relay event in which we will have two boys and two girls,” said Nkomo.

With the national finals in Bulawayo set for March 22-23, Matabeleland North province will have a good two weeks to adequately prepare its provincial squad.

“We look forward to putting up a decent show this time around and discard the bride maids tag that has been associated with the province at national level competitions,” he said.

While talent is in abundance, observers have largely blamed the poor performance of the province to substandard sporting facilities in all but one of the seven districts, which is Hwange. While the Colliery Stadium is still using cinder track, it remains standard and all other events are Olympic standard but in other districts, its all a sandy track and hopes are high that the Government, as promised by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Cde Patrick Chinamasa in his 2018 budget, will fulfil its commitment to build a state- of- the art stadium in each of the 10 provinces.

The seven districts that make up the province are Hwange, Binga, Nkayi, Lupane, Bubi, Umguza and Tsholotsho.

Meanwhile, Luveve High School yesterday held their inter house competitions at the school grounds that saw the school come up with a provisional team to compete in the zonal competitions.— @skhumoyo2000.