Cheetahs gear up for tournament

ZIMBABWE Zambezi Cheetahs National sevens team is gearing up for the Africa Men’s Sevens Rugby tournament to be held in South Africa from November 8 to 9.

The tournament will be held at the Bosman Stadium in Johannesburg.

“Preparations have been going on but not what we expected. We will however take what’s there and move on. The tournament in Zambia and Kenya played a part in preparing the boys. The team is in Stellenbosch at the Stellenbosch Academy of Sport. They are training there where we hope they will learn from the best,” said Zimbabwe Cheetahs manager Donald Mangenje.

Zimbabwe Cheetahs are the defending champions after they won the tournament in Tunisia last year. They beat rivals Kenya 17-5 in the final.

“Of course, as defending champions there will always be pressure because of expectations to do it over and over again. We are trying to handle it by keeping the boys focused on the task at hand,” said assistant manager of Cheetahs Simba Dangah.

Fourteen teams will compete for the gold medal to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games. The silver medalist will have another opportunity to qualify for the Olympics by competing in a repechage tournament in June 2020. A repechage tournament is when teams that fail to progress to the next round of a competition are allowed to play an additional tournament or games in the process.

Teams set to participate are Mauritius, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Zambia, Tunisia, Senegal, Morocco, Namibia, Ghana, Botswana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.

Hosts South Africa have gained direct qualification as they are competing at the Rugby World Cup in Japan.