The Sunday News
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
THE Bulawayo National Association of Secondary School Heads Track and Field Championships got a timely boost on Friday, when Bakers Inn came on board as sponsors.
They were more reasons to smile for the province as Bakers Inn said they will accommodate, kit, feed and transport the 120 athletes plus officials to travel to Victoria Falls for the 19-20 March national high schools championships. Mosi-Oa-Tunya High School are this year’s hosts on behalf of Matabeleland North Province.
The leading bakery and confectionery company will also pay US$100 for gold, US$50 for silver and US$25 for bronze to athletes who finish in the top three. The top three finishers will also get months’ supply of bread at their homes.
Bakers Inn will dress all the travelling officials in tracksuits, caps and T-shirts. Bakers Inn will also take care of the accommodation costs of Team Bulawayo in Victoria Falls as well as fuel for all the travelling vehicles.
Before that, Bakers Inn will also sponsor medals, and shields and also supply food at the inter-district competitions on
Thursday and Friday. Bakers Inn sales manager Clackson Masakwa, said they were delighted to be partnering Nash in athletics.
“We have put this state-of-the-art plant in Bulawayo and we believe the Bulawayo community must benefit from it.
“We want to partner with the Bulawayo community going forward. We looked at what we can do for the community of Bulawayo and realised we can support learners doing athletics because, for a long time, there has not been any sponsorship that has been supporting athletics. Therefore we came in.
“We singled out Themba Mhlophe, an athletics coach who has done well in athletics and is passionate about athletics. Our conversations with Mhlophe have led us here,” said Masakwa.
Provincial Education Director Bernard Mazambani, thanked Bakers Inn for their sponsorship,which he hopes will be extended to primary schools as well. “I would like to welcome Bakers Inn to the world of partnerships with our ministry. I would like to thank Bakers Inn for its support. I was looking at the magnitude of this sponsorship and asking if they are going to sustain this.
“We are hopeful that this partnership will last for a long period,” said Mazambani Bheki Dube, the Bulawayo Province Nash chairman said they were pleasantly surprised with the sponsorship.
“We were shocked as the Nash executive, when we heard that Bakers Inn wanted a meeting with us. We sat down with them and talked and we are lucky to have this sponsorship out of the other 10 provinces.
“This sponsorship is of great help to the province since we rely on subscriptions from our secondary schools to fund our sporting activities. This sponsorship has lessened the financial burden for us. We are short of words to describe what this sponsorship means,” said Dube.
Representing athletes, Esnath Ndlovu promised to honour the sponsorship by bringing as many gold medals to Bulawayo.
“I am honoured to witness such sponsorship to school athletics in my last year at high school. It is initiatives such as this one that push athletes to perform beyond expectations. I therefore, on behalf of the athletes as an interim captain pledge that we will perform even beyond expectations not because of incentives but because it’s the first time to have corporate involvement in high school athletics.
“We will honour this sponsorship by Bakers lnn by bringing in most of the medals if not all to the City of Kings and Queens. Thank you very much to the Bakers lnn management and for considering being involved in school athletics and sport at large, this will even improve the competitiveness of us athletes on the track. We are grateful for such a great sponsorship during our time which we wish will continue even beyond us,” said Ndlovu. – @innocentskizoe.
