He’s confident of Tokyo Games qualification
OLYMPIC hopeful Ngoni Makusha’s one-month training camp at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria, South Africa, appears to have raised his confidence and is looking forward to competition with a positive mind.
This is not the first time he has taken his training to the neighbouring country in an effort to increase his chances of making the times for the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
He had such a camp between December 2019 and January 2020. Unfortunately, there were not many qualifying competitions last year and he returned to the High Performance Centre last December for a one-month training camp.
He returned to Zimbabwe early this week.
This time around he is working with one of South Africa’s top athletics coach, Thabo Matebedi, and his training partner is Sinesipho Dambile, whose goal is also qualification for the Tokyo Games.
Makusha said apart from the experience gained from Matebedi, the environment has been key in motivating him since he was just focusing on training without much distraction.
“I would train two times a day because I was waking up thinking about athletics, go to sleep, wake up again thinking about athletics. So the environment in itself just motivated me and pushed me. So I am pretty sure when I race in February I can make the qualifying time for the Olympics.
“I learnt a lot from the coach there, coach Thabo. So I was training with Sinesipho Dambile, who is also trying to qualify for the Olympics. He is a junior, so we had the same goal and it helped a lot that we have the same goal.
“Mostly in terms of techniques, there has been improvement because we were focusing more on technique. So my technique has certainly improved,” said Makusha.
He is looking at qualifying for the 100m and 200m events.
The Harare-based athlete is back for a short break as he is expecting to go back early next month.
“I am planning to go back there in February. Then I am going to try to stay there for three or four months. I will be training that side and competing that side. I am planning to go back as early as possible. So if I can go back early February, it will be good. I am still going to stick with the same coach.
“So right now I am just trying to raise the funds so that I can go back because it’s quite difficult to qualify while you are this side because most of the races here, there is no electronic timing. And training is quite hard here because some of the tracks they don’t allow athletes, so it’s better to be that side.
“I think we made the right decision going there because if we had stayed this side I don’t think we would be where we are right now in terms of fitness, confidence and everything. So for me and the team we are just glad that we made that decision of going there,” Makusha said.
Makusha is one of the few athletes that got the Olympic scholarship, which he says has been helpful in driving his preparations.
But he is hoping he can get more support to enable him to achieve his goal as the preparation and qualifying phase requires a lot of resources.
The Olympic scholarship programme funded by the Olympic Solidarity, an arm of the International Olympic Committee, offers National Olympic Committees the possibility to obtain financial and technical assistance for a limited number of elite athletes, training and attempting to qualify for the Olympic Games.
Makusha was one of the few athletes that were awarded the scholarship for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.