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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
AS Triathlon Zimbabwe prepares for the national Duathlon Championships, vice-president Pamela Fulton says they are looking forward to a bigger and better event this year.
The national association is still finalising its calendar of events for the 2024-2025 season.
However, Triathlon Zimbabwe are scheduled to hold the National Duathlon Championships on September 29 at Donny-brook Race Track.
A duathlon consists of a running leg, followed by cycling and finishes with running again.
“Holding our third Duathlon Championships is important to us.
“We will be holding one duathlon before that in the first week of August at Borrowdale Brooke in preparation for the National Championships at Donnybrook.
“We are hoping that Patridge (Chimwendo) will be coming.
“He was the winner last year, and we are hoping that he will come back from South Africa to compete and hopefully defend his national championship title once again,” said Fulton.
Chimwendo won the title ahead of Shine Doko and Amos Chakaza last year.
The national competition was introduced in 2022.
Fulton said they are hoping to attract more cyclists at the upcoming event after a positive response to support last year’s edition.
“Last season at the last Duathlon National Championships, we had quite a few of the cyclists who came and participated.
“We hope that we will have a big contingent of cyclists coming to support us once again.
“And I think it’s really important for each sport — cycling, swimming and triathlon, and athletics too — to support each other at these events and to grow the sport. We have more to gain,” said Fulton.
The seasoned coach and administrator, who retained her post as vice-president of the association at this year’s election held in June, is grateful for the opportunity to continue serving the sport.
She noted that they still need to push for numbers.
“A big area that triathlon still needs improvement is continuing to grow the numbers in the junior and youth categories and get into as many schools as we can.
“I think we have worked a lot on this over the last few years. And in the past, we have been to different schools to do presentations to the schools and the coaches.
“Last year we decided to come up with a school championship, and we held one event at Mount Pleasant pool.
“We invited the junior schools to come and participate in this one event and, this year, we are going to grow this event and turn it into a series.
“We plan to have three different school events, all being held at Mount Pleasant pool in conjunction with one of our already existing events and put the focus onto the schools and create a series.
“That is one area we are going to be targeting in trying to increase numbers in the younger categories.”
“It’s very noticeable that, especially in our ladies in Under-17 and Under-19 categories, we have lost numbers in these categories.
“We need to continue to nurture and find new talent, and bring them into our sport and give opportunities of hopefully qualify to go on tour.
“We are going to be looking at our selection criteria and maybe revisiting it to make it more attractive for athletes to continue to stay in our sport as they get older.”
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