Zika preparations kick in

to fight for honours.
The national association is not taking any chances ahead of next month’s competition and Zika vice president, Vengai Mugadza, said preparations will begin tomorrow at Les Brown swimming complex.

“We are rounding the boys for the African championships to be held next month. The event was supposed to be held this month but it has been moved to June. We are starting camp on Saturday.
“We are going to train on weekends only because most of our fighters have to go back to their respective jobs,” said Mugadza.
Mugadza said they are hoping to field a team of more than five kickboxers for the continental competition.
“We are looking forward to sending about seven to eight people. We have been holding some tournaments since the beginning of the year and it was a process to select a provisional team from which we will select the best fighters to represent the nation.

“We are hoping to hold another tournament at the end of the month as part of our preparations,” Mugadza said.
Over the years, Zimbabwe has been invited for various major international tournaments but they have missed the opportunities due to lack of funds as the kickboxing mother body struggles to sustain their programmes.

The Zika vice said the problem is they rely more on sponsors, as they cannot fund their programmes on their own.
“What happens is that when we have events like this we right to several individuals and companies and they promise to help us but when the time comes for them to fulfil their promises they will always give you excuses.

“As an association we have this sport at heart. We have some equipment we are selling to try and raise some money but you find that most of the people we are dealing with don’t have any source of income and some times they cannot even pay their subscriptions so it becomes difficult,” said Mugadza.

The team will train under the watchful eye of national coach, Tony Kamangira and some of the fighters that are expected into camp this weekend include national champion, Brighton Tangata, Tafadzwa Muropa, Nicholas Kurimira, Ronald Deketeka, Ommar Mohammed and Farai Chitsa.