The Sunday Mail
Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE National Karate Federation (ZNKF) are hopeful the team they have picked for their inaugural participation at the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region 5 competition will win medals.
After being formally admitted into the World Karate Federation (WKF), ZNKF have spent the last year putting up structures and holding domestic competitions.
But the Region 5 games afford them the opportunity to gauge how much ground they have covered. The federation’s president, Joe Rugwete, is optimistic their karatekas will not disappoint at the competition slated for May 26 to May 29 in Durban, South Africa.
Rugwete — elected as the AUSC Region 5 Karate Federation president in November last year — said the Southern African body was determined to champion the development of sport. He wants Team Zimbabwe to be part of that growth and compete with the best karatekas in the region and continent.
It is against this background that ZNKF have placed hope in coaches Winston Nyanhete, Gerald Muusha, Victor Bunu, Tatenda Mushinga, David Dube and their team of karatekas to grab some medals.
“The expectations that we have for the squad, for this team, is obviously that these are the medal hopefuls that we are taking with us after a rigorous selection process that started in September 2021,” he said.
“We decided to do away with the controversy of national team selection, do away with allegations of favouritism and try to ensure that we carry the best possible team that we can in terms of performance.
“So we then formed a committee of provincial technical directors and the national team coaches. “These are the people who we mandated to select the national team.”
He also spoke about the need for long-term athlete development.
“The team could have been bigger than this. First of all, we don’t have the resources, and, secondly, we are not looking at performance of our team today; we are looking at where are we going to be five years, 10 years from now.
“So you will notice that as president of Southern Africa, I have managed to get the World Karate Federation to send us a coaching expect, Professor Antonio Oliva Seba, who is going to be in Durban to coach Southern Africa coaches, bring them up-to-date with trends and latest techniques at World Karate Federation.”
Seba’s presence in Durban also gives more coaches in Southern Africa an opportunity to participate. “We are going to try as much as possible to send our own provincial technical directors for this seminar so that when they come back we distribute this knowledge to all provinces.
“We are also going to have a minimum of four referees that are going to attend the referees’ course. We want to uplift the quality or the standard of our local coaches and local referees.”
