Masvingo nabbed for cheating

MASVINGO Province has been caught on the wrong side of the law when they were nabbed for cheating at the ongoing joint secondary and primary schools track and field athletics competition yesterday at White City Stadium.

The province, notorious for trying to achieve glory at all cost, was caught on the wrong side of the law yesterday when it tried to smuggle an athlete in the Under-16 boys 400m finals, raising questions on the legibility of its other athletes.

A member of the vetting panel confirmed the embarrassing incidence and said the athlete was immediately taken off the race while some further punitive action is expected to be meted on the province as per standing rules.

“It’s unfortunate that we still have people with such kind of mentality. All along we have been under the impression that teachers were now above the scourge but it seems it’s far from that,” said an official.

Following the cheating saga, a sports scientist from the National University of Science and Technology in attendance at the meet called for the utilisation of the Biometric Voter Registration machines in future to avoid such incidences of cheating.

“The BVR machines being used to register voters for the forthcoming elections, can come in handy in as far as nabbing cheating in schools sports is concerned. I heard that one province has already been caught on the wrong side of the law here and it’s unfortunate that people still resort to such acts in order to win. Schools must also come up with punitive measures to deter such things,” said the sports scientist who asked not to be named for professional reasons.

The athletics competition kicked off on Tuesday and will run until tomorrow when the winning provinces for both National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash) and their primary schools counterparts will be named as well as Team Zimbabwe for the regional schools meet set for Botswana in May.