Zim ready to defend Cossasa title

20 Apr, 2014 - 00:04 0 Views
Zim ready to defend Cossasa title Yvonne Vanhuvaone

The Sunday News

Yvonne Vanhuvaone

Yvonne Vanhuvaone

Ngqwele Dube Sports Correspondent
TEAM Zimbabwe is ready to defend its title at the Confederation of Schools Sports Association of Southern Africa meeting that runs between Wednesday and Saturday in Gaborone, Botswana.
The team has been in camp at Northlea High School in Bulawayo since last Sunday and leaves for the games on Tuesday.

National Association of Primary School Heads sports and welfare chairperson Elton Sinyosi said the training programme has progressed smoothly and expressed confidence that the athletes would do well in Botswana.

“As the defending champions we have been putting extra effort in training as we want to make another clean sweep at the games. We have not had any problems during our preparations and everything has gone well.

“We had several athletes who came into camp with minor injuries and sores but our medical department has taken care of that and we have the full complement of the athletes ready to compete,” he said.

Sinyosi said they have been utilising the tartan track at Nust during their training sessions to ensure the athletes got used to the surface they will run on in Botswana.

“We have been using Nust as the training venue for both the track and field events but Northlea also has good facilities but we wanted to use a track similar to the one to be used during the competition in Botswana,” he said.

Last year Zimbabwe won the competition with 19 gold, 20 silver and 22 bronze medals during the Cossasa finals that were held in Harare.

A team made up of 88 athletes from the Under-14s to the Under-17s has been training under several coaches led by National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe vice-president and coach Enius Nhoro along with coaches Phakamile Lisimati, Brian Nhubu and Vusumuzi Mlilo.

Athletes in camp were selected during the National Secondary School Heads inter-provincial competitions that were held at Peterhouse College in Marondera last month while the Under-14 team was selected at Hwange Stadium after the National Association for Primary School Heads inter-provincial competitions.

Participants in Botswana will compete in the 100, 200, 400, 800, 1 500m, the 4x100m and 4x200m relay events while in the field events contests will be in high jump, triple jump, javelin, discus and long jump.

Over 10 countries are expected to take part in the regional schools competition this year with South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and the hosts Botswana having confirmed participation.

Talented young athletes such as Yvonne Vanhuvaone, Tariro Nyamuka, Antonnetta Tembo, Abiola Ncube, Justice Dodzo and Adrian Chikunguru in the Under-18 category are expected to lead Zimbabwe’s medal charge while in the juniors Bulawayo’s Mthabisi Dube and Ndumiso Ncube are set to do well.

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