The Sunday News
Sikhumbuzo Moyo, recently in Hwange
IN 1980, the country celebrated its Independence from British colonial rule, eight years later in, an 18-year-old brought home the country’s first individual international track and field athletics medal after taking part in the 2nd World Junior Athletics Championships in Sudbury, Canada.
His medal winning time was 1 minute 51,34 seconds in the 800m event which was however, below his personal best of 1 minute 47,36 seconds which he ran in the semi-finals of the same event. Had he maintained this time, Melford Homela (Pictured) could have brought home the gold medal as the eventual winner, Kenyan Jonah Birir clocked 1 minute 50,03 seconds and the runner up Kevin Mckay of Great Britain clocked 1 minute 51,34 seconds.
Born in Gweru before moving to join a then thriving Wankie Athletics Club under the tutorship of the now late Prize Ndlovu, Homela was to represent the country again at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. The teenager was to make history again by becoming the first Zimbabwean to reach the quarter-finals of an Olympic individual event where he eventually bowed out with a time of 1 minute 49,62 seconds. He also competed in the 1 500m race but did not do so well there.
In that year, Homela was crowned the Zimbabwe Sports person of the Year. He then went on a scholarship to Riverside Community College in the United States of America where his 1988 record of 1 minute 48,20 seconds in the 800m still stands up to this very day. It’s the same college that renowned actor Will Smith went to.
“I remain proud of my achievement,” said Homela when Sunday Leisure caught up with him at his house in Ingagula Suburb in Hwange where he now works for the Zimbabwe Power Company.
Homela was to return to the Olympics in 1992, in Barcelona, Spain but failed to better his 1988 record.
Born on 3 June, 1970, Homela who boasts of numerous national, regional and international medal says he called time on the sport following the death of Ndlovu who he took as a father.
“His death badly affected me and even though I stayed on for a while, athletics was no longer the same for me and I had to call it quits in 1997 after 12 years on the track,” says the middle distance athlete now married to a lovely wife Mofiya and blessed with four children.
Homela says few athletes of his caliber now come out because most athletics clubs in the country no longer follow young athletes after school or don’t even have junior structures.
“In our time established clubs would follow you after school just like what Hwange did. These days once a talented athlete finishes his or her secondary education it becomes the end and in the end it’s the country that loses,” says Homela.
He said his dream was to one day own an athletics academy.
“I still have the passion to coach youngsters but resources are a major hindrance to that dream. We have once mighty clubs like Hwange athletics literally folding up and for you as an individual to run a club is almost impossible but if the economy improves and the corporate world comes along, I am sure that dream will become a reality,” reasons Homela.
