NAAZ track, field competition on tomorrow

THE National Sports Stadium B Arena comes alive tomorrow when athletes from across the country meet for the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe first track and field competition of the year.

The meet, scheduled to run for two hours will mark the beginning of this year’s competitions with at least 200 athletes from primary schools up to seniors participating.

NAAZ president Tendai Tagara is an optimistic man as the season begins and urged athletes to come in their numbers.

“Sunday we are expecting athletes to turn up in numbers so that they test their skills on the best facility before they go to their schools. They will go knowing what to expect in terms of competition come Nash competitions.

“Athletics is all about train and compete. If you don’t compete it’s better to leave athletics, so to all athletes go and test your preparations. It’s the beginning of the season and events will be few because athletes are still generalising,” said Tagara.

Tagara said they are impressed with their growing relationship with schools which is their base for development.

“I am happy schools, both primary and secondary have embraced our competitions because they have been benchmarks for their preparations for Nash and Naph,” Tagara said.

The tournament serves as the season opener for this year and competition will move to Bulawayo next week as the national association continues rotating national events between the two cities.

This will see two national events being held every month apart from provincial and clubs competitions to keep the athletes active.

This year the limelight is going to be more on the youth and juniors with three big events lined up for them.

For the youth they, have the African Youth Games in Algeria in July.

The Games are serving as a qualifier to the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina in October and athletics is one of the disciplines that will battle it out for places on Team Zimbabwe for the YOG.

On the other hand the juniors are looking forward to the World Under-20 championships in Finland from July 10 to 15.

With such major competitions the national association will have to push for more competitions not only on the local scene but also outside the country to expose their athletes and increase their chances of making the cut for the events.