The Sunday News
Nigel Siziba, Sports Reporter
ONE Infantry Brigade (Zimbabwe National Army) hosted this year’s bilateral games against their Botswana Defence Forces counterparts at White City Stadium where they showed some signs of improvement from last year’s display.
The teams competed in different sporting disciplines like athletics, netball, volleyball and soccer. A 10km endurance race between ZNA and BDF from Victoria Falls Road through Masiyephambili Drive to White City marked the start of this year’s bilateral games. In the first four kilometres, the soldiers were pushing tyres, ran 2km with two-metre poles and this year the Zimbabweans broke the record by winning with a time of one hour two minutes compared to last year’s one hour eight minutes. Zimbabwe had four females compared to last year’s two.
After the endurance race the field games kicked off and that saw ZNA officers taking on their BDF opponents in a crunching match that Zimbabwe won by seven goals to four and Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey Mutyamaedza banged four goals.
Botswana were not going to be outdone as they managed to beat Zimbabwe 3-0 in the volleyball match and their coach hailed his team for their tactical discipline.
“I think we were more prepared than our opponents because we spent a lot of time as a team and we capitalised on that Zimbabwe could not beat the block and they could not penetrate,” said Gaolathe Motsamai (coach).
Botswana team also managed to outclass their opponents 36-26 in a tightly contested netball match and the Zimbabwean coach Prosper Mubaiwa said to him it is a win because of some improvements big compared to last year.
“I think the game was quite okay because we dominated the first quarters, but it is always hard when you are playing with seasoned players who have more than ten years in the game, last year we lost by 28 points but to us it is a win because we gave a good fight and we could have won, we only lacked mental strength,” Mubaiwa said.
The main event was a soccer match that lived up to its expectations and the fans were left wanting more as Zimbabwe ran over Botswana.
