Vusumuzi Dube
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
UNITED States of America based Zimbabwean athlete, Faith Nyathi, who is at the El Paso Community College, is the National Junior College Athletic Association athlete of the week after running to first place in the New Mexico Highlands Invitational.
Nyathi, from Ndolwane in Bulilima district was acknowledged by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association on Monday. This was after she completed 5km in 18 minutes and 50 seconds. She outpaced her closest competitor by over one minute during the invitational in Hobbs, New Mexico.
“I heard of EPCC’s dominate cross country team in Zimbabwe and aimed at running here all along,” Nyathi was quoted as having said.
The community college’s cross-country teams will travel to Las Vegas, New Mexico for their next competition on 16 October.
Nyathi, a long distance athlete left Zimbabwe for the US in August to take up a scholarship at El Paso Community College in Texas.
The female athlete is a beneficiary of the Costa Takawira Mangwende Foundation scholarship programme initiated in 2015 by former sportsperson, Costa Takawira who is working in partnership with another USA based ex-athlete, Philemon Hanneck to secure scholarships for Zimbabwean athletes to the US where they get access to better facilities and advanced coaching. Kevin Chiku and Bradley Makuvire are the other scholarship recipients, with the two also in the USA.
More athletes are heading to the US at the end of this year when Hanneck comes to Zimbabwe to fetch them. Takawira is certain that the three athletes already in the US have what it takes to represent Zimbabwe at the Olympics as well as World Athletics Championships in future.
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