ANSA dates set for December

THE Sport and Recreation Commission have set November 21 as the deadline for the submission of nominees for the 2018 Annual National Sports Awards and urged national sport associations to make their submissions on time.

The awards ceremony has been set for December 18 in Harare.

Sports Commission corporate communications officer, Tirivashe Nheweyembwa, said the nomination process is already underway. Nheweyembwa said the entries will be closed on November 21, followed by the unveiling of the nominees two weeks later.

“We opened the entries two weeks ago. We are going to close on November 21 and the unveiling will happen two weeks after so that we give the judges time to attend to the submissions.

“We are saying to national sport associations we have already given them the nomination forms . . . Some have actually been asking for the nomination forms.

“We always have challenges with people who start asking for those nomination forms with hours before closure. Our appeal to the national sport associations is, this is the time to collect these forms,” said Nheweyembwa.

The awards are organised to recognise and celebrate achievements by local athletes at national, regional, continental and international level.

Nheweyembwa challenged the national sport associations to keep track of their athletes to ensure that deserving athletes are honoured as there have been situations whereby some athletes could not make it on the nominees list because their names would not have been submitted.

“Sometimes we have foreign athletes that are doing well but national sport associations are not keeping track on the athletes. So it’s important for national associations to keep track of their athletes because sometimes we are busy to track all the athletes.

“Above that we have some athletes that are managed by their parents, in such a scenario parents can approach us. Sometimes what tends to happen is associations keep a distance for some reasons. But what we always want is to ensure that there is enough information on the form,” said Nheweyembwa.

With the winners at country level automatically entered for the African Union Sports Council Region Five Regional Annual Sports Awards, Nheweyembwa said associations have to be thorough in terms of the information they submit. “What we are going to do is that we are going to use it also for the RASA awards, so the information must be as detailed as possible and they should also make sure that it can be easily verified. Karateka Samson Muripo is the reigning Sports-person of the Year.