H Metro

Hockey tourney postponed

- Darlington Gatsi

ZIMBABWE Women’s Under 21 hockey team have become the latest victims of the newly-found Covid-19 Omircon variant after their scheduled World Cup journey was postponed.

Federation of Internatio­nal Hockey postponed the Under 21 Hockey World Cup that was scheduled to commence on Sunday after various countries banned internatio­nal travel.

Zimbabwe Under 21 hockey coach Tendai Maredza is disappoint­ed by the latest developmen­ts.

“It is a hard one, tough one for our side even for any other country. We had prepared for the tournament but it is what it is. It has affected a lot of people. We are just going to stay positive and hopefully they will be able to put in a new date for us to play the tournament,” said Tendai Maredza.

Zimbabwe were supposed to play friendly matches in South Africa as part of its preparatio­ns for the World Cup this week.

“It has affected us a lot. Obviously the girls were looking forward to it. We were in camp when we got the news and we managed to stay in the camp. We managed to get talk about it with the girls, calm the girls down get them to understand that it is not the end of the world and it is not cancelled but it is actually postponed. So there is still light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Under 21 team will not disband due to the postponeme­nt of the tournament.

“We are still going to keep the same team like I said it has been postponed so we will see what FIH will say which they will tell us the new date once everything is settled. We are going to keep the same team, keep training and then we will just see how it goes,” said Maredza

 ?? ?? Tendai Maredza
Tendai Maredza

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Zimbabwe