Chronicle Editor
Michael Magoronga, [email protected]
More than 20 tug-of-war teams from across the country yesterday converged on Gesham Primary School in Zvishavane, for a national tournament.
The one-day tournament was meant to raise funds to be channelled towards the preparation for the Africa Championships, to be hosted by Zimbabwe.
The African Championships are slated for Victoria Falls from 20 to 22 June.
The national tournament also served as a memorial for the Zimbabwe Tug of War Federation (ZITWF), late president Gilbert Madziwa, who died in December after a short illness.
Exide Batteries Harare beat Bulawayo Metro to win the man’s 720kg category, while Glow Petroleum from Midlands overpowered fellow Midlanders ZPC Munyathi, to become champions in the 640kg category.
ZITWF acting president Lazarus Nkomo said he was impressed by the turnout.
“The turnout was impressive because we had eight women’s teams and 14 men’s teams from across the country. This shows that the sport is gaining traction,” he said.
Nkomo said the tournament was good for the preparation of the African Championships.
“This is a very good opportunity for us to assess progress ahead of the championships in June. National team coaches were also present to make their own assessments.
We also took the opportunity to honour our late President who died in December. His family was in attendance and we took time to console them,” he said.
The late Madziwa, was team manager for Exide Harare. Nkomo said though the sport was slowly gaining popularity, sponsorship was still a challenge.
“We are still struggling to get funding due to lack of exposure of most potential funders to the sport.
We are calling upon the corporate world to come in and support us in our endeavours. The sport is a family sport which the whole family can enjoy,” he said.
He said they were now moving to spread the sport across the country.
“You find out that only four provinces were represented. We still have some provinces like Masvingo, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland East among others, who are yet to get a feel of the sport.
We will therefore move into these provinces and other provinces so that we introduce the sport to them.
We will also venture into schools where we will start by training teachers first before we train the students, so that they can also enjoy the sport,” said Nkomo.
Tug-of-war is popular at events like Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre, Midlands Agricultural Show, Harare Agricultural Show and Munyathi Festival among others.
Hordes of participants from provinces like Bulawayo, Harare, Midlands, Manicaland were in attendance.
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