Sport remains shackled

THE lifting of some of the COVID-19-induced lockdown restrictions will not benefit sports persons as they remain shackled and restricted to home training.

On Saturday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced the lifting of certain restrictions, saying the country was moving to level 2 of the lockdown.

By yesterday, many Zimbabweans were still trying to understand some of the new measures after it was announced that industry and commerce could reopen starting today, but there was still a lot of confusion on who is now allowed to move around.

The sporting fraternity was also trying to find out whether athletes could now, at least, go out for training either as teams or individuals, but Information permanent secretary Ndavaningi Mangwana said there was yet no respite for sportspersons.

He said sport falls under recreation, which is still banned under level 2 of the lockdown measures.

“Those fall under recreational activities and they remain in lockdown,” he told NewsDay Sport yesterday.

This means that the chances of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) being played and finished this year have further diminished.

If the top-flight league is to be played this year, the authorities will probably have to adopt the August to May season.

PSL players have been doing individual training at home, while some have been going out to train in clusters under the cover of darkness in some highdensity suburbs.

All the preparatory work that the players and coaches put in before the outbreak of the disease in the country has been put to waste and when they are finally allowed to resume training, they will have to start all over again.

Other disciplines such as cricket have also been hard hit.

The national cricket team’s prospects of hosting Afghanistan in the country this year have evaporated since restrictions are set to be in place at least until the end of the month.

Players have also been confined to fitness drills at home and their likely return to action could be during the tour to Australia in July/August.

The national rugby team was also looking to start preparing for the international season between next month and August.

Athletics has lost time and is also looking forward to an early return.