NAAZ eyes IAAF World U20 Champs

THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe have indicated that they will be pushing for their athletes to aim for qualifying times for the IAAF World Under20 championships when they take part in a regional meet next week.

The world championships will take place in Finland in July.

So far three athletes - Kundai Maguranyanga and Tinotenda Matiyenga, both based in the United States met the qualifying times in 100m while Simbarashe Maketa made the grade in the 200m event.

In their bid to try and have more athletes competing for qualification, the national association has called over 30 athletes to participate at the Southern Africa Junior championships in Johannesburg, South Africa on April 27 and 28.

The team will be camped at Northlea High School in Bulawayo from tomorrow until their departure on April 25.

They will be led by Brian Nhubu as the head of technical and he said they are looking at a few more athletes running qualifying times for the global competition at the regional meet.

“We have picked most of the high performance athletes, the outstanding juniors and youths. We have used quite a number of competitions to pick the athletes,” said Nhubu.

Some of the hopefuls for the team include Vimbai Maisvoreva, who came sixth in 800m at the IAAF World Under-18 championships in Kenya last year. She is going to compete in both 400m and 800m events.

Maisvoreva will be joined by her teammates from the Under-18 championships team last year, sprinter Donovan Mutariswa, 800m and 1 500m runner Arage Mutombo and Masciline Watama (100m and 4x100m).

Mutariswa was also part of the 4x100m boys relay team that picked gold at the African Junior championships last year. The team included Maguranyanga, Matiyenga and Dickson Kapandura.

“So all these are seasoned athletes in terms of experience, they have been there at international level. They were at the Youths (Under-18) championships in Kenya.

“There is Dickson Kapandura, he was part of the boys’ relay team that won gold at the African Junior championships in Algeria.

“We also have other outstanding athletes coming out of the NAAZ and schools’ competitions. The likes of Panashe Sunguro, Norman Mukwada and Denis Gono. So in terms of selection we have tried our best to pick the best athletes from across the country,” said Nhubu.

Nhubu said apart from focusing on qualification for Finland by both the juniors and youths, they are also using the event to gauge their readiness for the African Youth Games in Algeria in July.

NAAZ director of coaching, talent identification and development Lisimati Phakamile urged the qualified athletes to continue working hard with their respective coaches ahead of the championships in Finland.

“We have three so far that have qualified already and we are hoping if we can have three or four more we would have a good number.

“We are still encouraging these guys that have qualified to keep working hard and not to relax because they made the grade,” said Phakamile.