Under-17 teams for Partille Cup
IN a bid to broaden the development of handball, the Zimbabwe Handball Federation is this year expecting to field both the national Under-17 boys and girls’ teams at the Partille Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The tournament is on from July 3 to 8. In recent years, Zimbabwe were represented by schools like Girls High and clubs at the event.
However, ZHF secretary-general Edison Chiroodza said this time around the national association had broadened their scope and were sending a national team selected from across the country.
The door has also been kept open to schools that are interested to participate in the prestigious event.
“It’s a national team and this team has been selected from all the country’s 10 provinces. They were selected during a national tournament last month and the process of selection is continuous.
“We have another tournament this weekend in Harare, and I think it will be the final selection tournament,” said Chiroodza.
The Partille Cup is the world’s largest handball tournament for youths in terms of the numbers of participants. The annual event is mainly for young people aged between 10 and 21.
The selected group of more than 20 boys and girls had their first training camp recently at Girls High School, supervised by coaches Alen Mandeya and Clemence Leonard.
The teams are will regroup on June 23 in Chinhoyi.
“We have another training camp scheduled for June 23. By the end of selection we should have around 20 players for each team and then they will trim each team to 15.
“The competition itself, it’s a world junior invitational tournament, so it involves national teams and clubs. So schools they are still going to participate.
“But our target as the national association now with this age-group is to create a team that will compete at the 2024 Olympics.
“By the time we get to 2023, 2024 they will be around 23 or 24, an age group which will be able to compete. It’s a long-term process we are working on. We want to expose them to regional and international tournaments,” said Chiroodza.
Mandeya described their first training camp last weekend at Girls High as a success although some of the boys selected failed to turn up as they were taking part in another tournament.
“The training camp was a success, especially with the girls’ team. We had a full contigent of players we were expecting to report for camp. For the boys we could not have all the players. It was mainly caused by the Churchill tournament held on the same weekend.
“The girls they are in good shape, even the boys. But we need to work on their endurance and to understand their positions in the playing field. We had 14 girls and a total of seven who came,” said Mandeya.