Zim handball teams for Zambia
ZIMBABWE’S men and women national handball teams are set to take on Zambia in friendly matches next month in a development aimed at reviving the senior teams that have not been active for some time.
The matches are pencilled for December 16 and 17 in Lusaka.
Zimbabwe Handball Federation secretary-general, Edson Chirowodza, said taking into account that nothing much has been happening at senior level in terms of competition, the friendlies are important for them.
“The Zambia friendly matches dates have been set for December 16 and 17 in Lusaka. So for now we are looking forward to the teams leaving on December 14 that is for the senior men and women teams.
“This is quite important, for the past years handball has been mainly dominated by schools, so we want to have more of our national teams involved.
“Despite having major tournaments ahead of us we need to have our men and women’s teams in place and in shape. We cannot wait until we get a competition to prepare.
“So we have started preparing because we have a long-term plan that even our juniors should be able to compete at the 2024 Olympics,” said Chirowodza.
He said they are also considering sending the Under-20 teams as well in preparation of next year’s Zone Six championships.
“We are also planning towards taking our junior teams in preparation for the Zone Six next year. But the senior are the ones we had a planned schedule,” Chirowodza said.
The national federation has already appointed Farai Gwisai and Cleopatra Mareverwa as the coaches for the men and women’s teams respectively.
They had their first periodic camp with some of the players in September and are hoping to have another one after the National Club championships slated for November 25 and 26 in Harare.
Gwisai said the championships present them with another platform to identify more players ahead of the friendly games.
“We are now left with the national championships to see the clubs playing and identify more players and call them for camp.
‘‘So we will have our periodic camp after the championships, after three or four days we break then we come back to have the final preparations for Zambia the 10th of December,” said Gwisai.