‘More can still be done for Zim sport’

Ellina Mhlanga in PARIS, France

HAVING had the opportunity to attend part of the ongoing Olympic Games here, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Nicholas Moyo says more could be done for the development of sport in Zimbabwe.

The Games were officially opened on July 26 and run until August 11.

Moyo was in Paris when they got underway and had the chance to watch some of Team Zimbabwe’s members, rower Stephen Cox and swimmers Paige van der Westhuizen and Denilson Cyprianos, competing.

Making her debut appearance at the Olympics, Van der Westhuizen was ranked 25 overall in the women’s 100m freestyle out of 29.

She had shown her potential when she won Heat One in 58.19 seconds.

Cyprianos took his Olympics bow and was ranked 28 in the men’s 200m backstroke.

He swam a personal best of 2 minutes 01.91 seconds, also setting a new national record when finishing sixth in Heat One.

Cox, the first of the Zimbabweans to compete here, ended his campaign in the Men’s Single Sculls with a 29th overall ranking out of 33.

He was placed fifth when in the Final E with a time of 7 minutes 09.34 seconds.

As he wound up his tour of duty in Paris last week, Moyo highlighted some of the aspects he believes, if implemented, can see Zimbabwe’s athletes becoming more competitive.

“Three things if I summarise, first, as we prepare beyond 2024, when we are looking at 2028, is looking at our low-hanging fruits,” he said.

“What are the sports codes that we can consolidate, build and push for podium performance? So, sitting as stakeholders and agreeing on which sports codes are important, then we are able to then develop and promote those athletes within those sports codes. It’s very important, that’s number one.

“Number two, it’s creating platforms that will make our people shine. So, we need, as a country, to now create well-organised platforms where we put resources as Government and as corporates for platforms that will make talent identification become very easy. That’s the second one.”

The Permanent Secretary also spoke about sporting facilities, which have also been a limiting factor for local athletes.

“Then the third issue, which is the experience that I have seen here, is how do we better the facilities?  For me, that becomes very important,” he said.

“Are we going to benchmark with what is here, perhaps as a futuristic vision, the basic things that we need for athletics, the basic things we need for swimmers, those are things that we can look at in Zimbabwe and say what facilities are there?”

Moyo called for strategies that assist in long-term development of athletes.

“How do we allow different athletes that we will then have identified in the coming four years and beyond to have access to facilities where we have invested ourselves as Government, and have our partners to then better our facilities?” said Moyo.

“For me, those three are key takeaways, which I have said to my team here, the coming two months are going to be very important for Zimbabwe as we make our strategy for what we are going to do in 2025 and 2026, so that when we get to 2027, we already know how many athletes are Olympic hopefuls,” said Moyo.

Of the seven athletes representing Zimbabwe in France, only marathon runner Rutendo Nyahora has been to the Games before, having represented Zimbabwe at the Rio 2016 Games.

The rest of the team — sprinters Makanakaishe Charamba and Tapiwanashe Makarawu, marathon runner Isaac Mpofu, Cox, Van der Westhuizen and Cyprianos — are Olympics debutants.

Mpofu and Nyahora are expected in Paris today for their races, scheduled for August 10 and 11, respectively.

Makarawu and Charamba are up for the men’s 200m heats tomorrow.