The Sunday Mail
Tinashe Kusema
ZIMBABWE speedster Ngoni Makusha woke up last Thursday morning to the shock of his life—he broke into the IAAF top 10 rankings for the first time in his career.
“I was home and had just woke up when I received the news from a teammate who sent me a WhatsApp message informing me of the feat,” said the Chitungwiza-bred runner.
“I could not believe it, a top 10 ranking is a big thing,” he said.
The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) rankings is a global monitoring system, where athletes score points based on a combination of result and place depending on the level of the competition in which the result is achieved.
The ranking is then based on their average score over a certain number of competitions in a defined period of time, and here the rankings are updated every Wednesday.
Makusha is now ranked tenth for 2019 in the 200-meter race and currently has 1144 points.
He has an average time of 20.49 seconds, which is below the race limit of 22.40 seconds.
Jamaica’s Akeem Bloomfield tops the 200-meter rankings, followed by Alex Quinonez and Roberto Skyers of Ecuador and Cuba in second and third position respectively.
For his part, Makusha has chosen to keep a cool head, and instead hopes to use it as a confidence booster in his search for both the World Championships and Olympic qualification.
“Yeah, it feels great and I’m truly happy with the progress, but a good international ranking is just the first step,” said Makusha.
“It’s (ranking) merely proof that my hard work is starting to pay off now and I definitely aim to keep at it. I feel that much closer to the Worlds and Olympics now as the world ranking qualification system will be used for Olympics.
“I have to maintain my position up there as that will better my chances for qualifying and it will also help me with finding diamond league races which is also one of my goals,” he said.
There was double celebration for Team Zimbabwe as Makusha’s teammates Tinotenda Matiyenga and Tatenda Tsumba also broke into the top 100.
Matiyenga is now ranked 59 with 1096 points, while Tsumba made it to number 76 with 1088 points in the 200-meter race.
