admin
Ellina Mhlanga-Senior Sports Reporter
WITH less than three weeks before the World Athletics Championships take off, Zimbabwe’s marathon runners are looking at polishing up their preparations.
The world meet is due to take place from August 19 to 27 in Budapest, Hungary.
The trio of Isaac Mpofu, Ngonidzashe Ncube and Fortunate Chidzivo have been in camp since early July under the guidance of coach Benson Chauke.
The camp is running until their departure.
Chauke said as the championships get closer, they are working on ensuring the athletes are ready for the competition.
“Pre-competition preparation is what we are now focusing on. So we are now working on a programme looking at what they are supposed to do during competition, building endurance, speed, speed endurance, simulation for the race, how they run.
“The scenarios that they are likely going to encounter in the race . . . All those things are now being put in place during training and during preparation, and with specific time splits they target as we move close to the competition. So that’s what we have been doing,” said Chauke.
The athletes have competed in various races as part of the build-up and assessing their progress in competitive races.
“So we have used some races like the Beitbridge half marathon, Victoria Falls half marathon to build while checking our tempo, just to check if we are now able to manage it in a kind of a competition set-up.
“So our focus was our tempo, it was not on the winning prize and stuff . . . we wanted to see how our time splits were going. So we have continued on that path,” said Chauke.
Chidzivo and Ncube are also chasing qualification for Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Mpofu has already qualified for the Games and will be hoping to build on his performance from the last World Championships where he finished on position 10 going into this year’s edition.
All the three athletes have been to the World Championships before and have represented Zimbabwe at various platforms.
“For those that are yet to qualify for 2024 (Olympics), the hope is either through time or through position they may also qualify for 2024 Paris. So Ngoni and Fortunate are aspiring to qualify for next year.
“So this is the only window they are having where they can either qualify by time or by position, at the World Championships. So that’s a two option (event) that can make them qualify. So our preparation has been taking that into consideration, to try to do our best to help them prepare.
“But a competition is a competition, things change, things happen, what we desire to achieve we might not but still it doesn’t mean we didn’t do proper preparation,” said Chauke.
Ncube, who competed in the Zimbabwe School of Mines half marathon in Bulawayo over the weekend and came third is content with the progress he has made.
“So far so good. We are in the right track. I wanted to see if what we have done in camp is coming up well and I think I am now confident, so it’s now more about polishing up.
“I was working on speed and from the race, I think we are on the right track. My target is to improve and get the qualifying time for the Olympics,” said Ngoni.
The qualifying time for marathon to the Olympics is 2hours 8minutes 10seconds for men and 2hours 26minutes 50seconds.
Also set to represent the country at the global competition is United States-based sprinter Tapiwa Makarawu, who qualified for 200m.
Online Reporter