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Sports Reporter
THE Harare Mayor’s Invitational Basketball Challenge roars into life today with about 30 men and women teams participating.

The games will be at City Sports Centre and Belvedere Technical Teacher’s College from today until Sunday.

The event has attracted clubs from Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Namibia with 18 teams in the men’s section divided into four pools.

The top two from each pool advance to the quarter-finals. The women’s section has 12 teams drawn into two pools and the top two will go straight into the semi-finals. The event’s manager Chipo Mashingaidze said the Invitational Challenge is a platform to promote sport and recognise local talent.

“All the other sports have ways of getting themselves out there . . . So this is a platform where can we actually acknowledge the skill that we have here because we have got a lot of Zimbabwean teams on that sheet and also tapping into the talent.

“Sport is not just recreation, sport is a career. And a lot of times the career aspect of sport is sidelined until someone does something out of the ordinary like the Blacks, Kirsty Coventry, Elliot Mujaji, like Peter Ndlovu, only when somebody does something extraordinary does they get noticed.

“But how do you pick out extraordinary athletes if you don’t create a platform for people to come and showcase their skill? So this is one platform where people can identify extraordinary talent.

“There are skills in here and we need to tap into them, we need to celebrate them, we need to expose them so that we can recognise it as a career to focus on as well,” said Mashingaidze.

Mashingaidze added that it’s also an opportunity to learn since this is the first time they are hosting such an event.

Teams from outside the country expected to take part include Matero Magic and Looters from Zambia, Dolphins and Francis Town Flames of Botswana. Malawi’s Cougars, Brave Hearts and Central Knights are also expected as well as Namibia’s The Weekend Squad and Savio from Tanzania.

“We think it’s a good thing, it’s a good start for us just the fact that we have been able to attract that many teams. Right now as we go into the first day it’s really execution, making sure the teams play when they are supposed to play, people that come enjoy the tournament.

“And that maybe some corporates who have not seen this kind of an event come on board and as we look towards next year look at opportunities that are presenting themselves through a sporting event of this magnitude in Harare,” said Mashingaidze.

Men:

Pool A: Harare City Hornets, Southern Mavericks, Midlands State University, Looters, Cougars.

Pool B: Foxes, Mercineries, Matero Magic, Francistown Flames, Central Knights.

Pool C: Hustlers, Giants, Assassins, Dolphins.

Pool D: JBC, Glen View Rockets, Savio, Brave Hearts.

Women:

Pool A: Southern Mavericks, JBC, Harare City Hornets, Brave Hearts, Dolphins, Midlands State University.

Pool B: Lakers, Vixens, Lady Dynamites, Matero Magic, Cougars, The Weekend Squad.