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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
ELSON Muhambi, a councillor in Epworth, feels that the area is being marginalised when it comes to sport development programmes in this country. Epworth is a grossly underdeveloped dormitory of Harare situated on the eastern periphery of the capital and Muhambi, who is a councillor for Ward 3, said the area was awash with talented young athletes but a lot still needs to be done to tap sporting talent there.

Speaking to The Herald on the sidelines of the annual Mwalimu Kumbula Soccer Tournament finals at Kubatana Primary School in Epworth where he was among the invited guests on Sunday, Muhambi urged national sport associations to include athletes from this settlement area in their development plans.

“There are a lot of talented athletes here in Epworth who take part in different sporting discipilines such as athletics, football, taekwondo, boxing, judo, karate, bodybuilding and netball but what they lack is the much-needed exposure which could see them being named in the national teams and go on to represent Zimbabwe at major international events. In fact, we had a number of fighters from Epworth who took part in the South Korea Ambassador’s Taekwondo Championships at the University of Zimbabwe on Friday and Saturday where they won some medals and this means a lot for us here,” said Muhambi, who is into bodybuilding.

He, however, lamented the lack of sport development in Epworth, an area which has always been shunned by many people in the local sporting fraternity as its inhabitants are poverty-stricken, mostly unemployed citizens, among them gangs of criminals and prostitutes, who find the unplanned settlement an ideal haven.

“Epworth has been associated with all sorts of vices but it also has hundreds of talented young male and female athletes who take part in different sporting disciplines but we mainly lack sporting equipment which will help them in their skills learning programmes. But we are hoping and praying that the construction of the proposed Olympafrica Centre in Epworth will help us to identify and churn out hundreds of talented athletes from this area who, I’m quite sure, will go far and represent the country at the Olympic Games and other major international events,” Muhambi said.

The construction of the Olympafrica Centre, which is near Domboramwari Secondary School, is the brainchild of one of Epworth’s most illustrious sons Musekiwa Kumbula, who, together with his close friend and former ZOC president, Tommy Sithole, mooted the idea of building it there before they got into a partnership with the local Olympic body. Kumbula approached the Epworth Local Board with the idea of setting up the Olympafrica Centre in the town before they got into a partnership with ZOC.

The project is expected to cost over $500 000 and will be completed in the next five years. Construction is yet to begin at the proposed site of the Olympafrica Centre in Epworth but the president of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, Admire Masenda, indicated on Sunday that it (the construction of the centre) will soon get off the ground. Masenda, who was the guest of honour at the Mwalimu Kumbula Soccer Tournament finals in Epworth on Sunday, said they were tying up a few loose ends which will see the construction of the OlympAfrica Centre starting at anytime soon. And Masenda said “if all goes well”, the finals of next year’s Mwalimu Kumbula Soccer Tournament will be held at the Olympafrica Centre in Ep- worth. ZOC have also taken the Olympic Fun Day celebrations to Epworth with the area hosting the last two editions of this event.