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Ellina Mhlanga
Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Olympic Committee chief executive Marlene Gadzirayi says they are always ready to work with national associations and to assist athletes chasing qualification for the Olympic Games.
With less than a year left for the Paris 2024 Olympics Games due to take place from July 26 to August 11, Zimbabwe are hoping to have a number of their athletes making the grade for the multisport global showcase.
Speaking to Zimpapers Television Network, ZTNPrime’s Morning Rush, Gadzirayi said they have a role to play to ensure athletes are prepared.
She highlighted some of the initiatives they have taken to assist national associations with athletes and teams seeking qualification for next year’s Olympics.
“What we do as Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, we work with those federations to get the athletes and make sure that they are prepared to go the Olympics.
“As the Olympic Committee, our mandate now is to actually go back and not just wait for a federation to bring athletes to us and say this person went to the African Championships, or they went to a qualifying race and they qualified here you are, here is a name.
So what ZOC has now done is to actually go back to bring in support.
“So if you talk about, for example the rugby qualifiers, the men’s sevens, we actually managed to fund that they go for training to the High Performance in South Africa.
“We have had some athletes; even the Lady Cheetahs are going to Tunisia but when they went to Zambia again we actually funded that so that they could have some training there.
“We have had to pay some airfares for a marathoner like Rutendo Nyahora. She was in Athens, now she is going to Germany, that’s for a qualifying race. We have paid for that.
“So that kind of support, just coming back to say as an association what is the assistance that you need so that we can also just assist these athletes as a whole to get them to the world stage and to qualify for the Olympics,” said Gadzirayi.
Gadzirayi joined ZOC on September 1. She replaced Stephen Mudawarima, who left the National Olympic Committee in February after two years as the chief executive.
Speaking on her new role, Gadzirayi said apart from her professional and academic qualifications, she has always had passion for sport.
She has previously worked with the Footballers Union of Zimbabwe in their secretariat and believes it provided her with the opportunity to learn about sport, in particular football.
The new ZOC chief executive one of her mandates is to ensure there is an understanding of what the Olympic Games means in terms of the process of getting to the Games.
“So basically, we know what the Olympics are, they come once in every four years. But then I think one of my mandates is to actually make everybody understand what Olympics mean… Do we just wait for four years to then start talking about the Olympics?
“So I think some of my immediate tasks about the visibility of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee and what does that mean, it’s also understanding the journey to the Olympics.
“So part of it, is to actually just showcase what athletes are doing, how we are preparing for the Olympics, what actually happens before the Olympics and getting to understand what it means for an athlete to actually qualify for the Olympics.
“So I think the Olympics are basically a destination.
“What the Olympics are for me is really the journey to the Olympics… So that journey to earning that spot for me is really what is really important about Olympics,” said Gadzirayi.
Online Reporter