Government upbeat about Team Zimbabwe
THE Government is confident that the country’s athletes, who are on an African Games tour of duty here will quickly adapt to the conditions in Accra and acquit themselves well in Team Zimbabwe’s search for medals.
The team have been hard at work for the Games whose competitions have already started ahead of tomorrow’s official opening ceremony.
And yesterday the athletes, their coaches and managers were joined in Accra by Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture deputy Minister Emily Jesaya, chairman of the parliamentary portfolio committee on Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Chamu Chiwanza who flew into the West African country yesterday.
Jesaya and Chiwanza were on the same flight with Sport and Recreation Commission board member Colleen De Jongh four more athletes from cycling and swimming and their team officials.
Director of Sport and Reaction in the Ministry of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Eugenia Chidhakwa and Team Zimbabwe Chef de Mission Eltah Nengomasha were on hand to welcome the Deputy Minister and the contingent that flew in yesterday afternoon.
Both Jesaya and Chiwanza are confident Zimbabwe will be among the podium finishers.
“We are happy to be here in Ghana for the 13th African and our wish is to see our athletes excel and also become our cultural ambassadors here in Ghana.
“Titovas’ve tose kuti mitambo inobatanidza vanhu varikubva kunzvimbo dzakasiyana siyana nekukudzwa zvakasiyana. Kupinda kwataita mu Ghana tawona kuti mamiriro ekunze (weather) akasiyana ne ari kumusha asi tonovimba kuti vana vedu vachagona kukukwikwidza zvakanaka mu environment iri kuno vago gonawo kusimudzira mureza we Nyika yedu ye Zimbabwe,’’ Jesaya said.
Jesaya is also expected to attend some meetings that will be running on the sidelines of the competitions, starting this morning.
Chiwanza echoed the Deputy Minister’s sentiments and noted the significance of the Games in embodying the spirit of Pan Africanism and the power of sport in uniting the continent.
“Ghana is very hot and we are getting ourselves acclimatised and the team is ready and raring to go and ready to raise our flag very high,’’ Chiwanza said.
“Obviously our expectations are that our team will come back home with medals, make our country proud, make our President proud and we have done a lot of preparation to make sure that athletes themselves are heavily equipped to come and represent us at the highest level
“We are very much enthusiastic and pretty much excited that the Games are about to start and we are ready to go.
“I think the spirit of Pan Africanism, the spirit of unity between African countries, I think it just talks to us that we are one, we can be demarcated by borders, which were obviously forced on us by colonialists but at the end of the day, an African is an African and
I hope these Games will do much more to escalate that and we can use these Games to find ourselves as Africans,’’ said Chiwanza.
More athletes will continue to come into Ghana closer to their competition schedules.
But it is Women cricketers the Lady Chevrons who will get the ball rolling for team sports when they face Rwanda in a Group B match later this afternoon (3.50pm).
Zimbabwe are favourites to progress from Group which also includes Kenya and Uganda while South Africa headline Group A that has Namibia, Tanzania and Nigeria.