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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
AFTER making their debut appearance at the inaugural Young Masters handball tournament last year, Zimbabwe are hoping to field more junior teams drawn from different schools and clubs at this year’s event pencilled for August 6-8 in Cape Town, South Africa.

National handball development officer Daniel Mtandwa said they have identified a number of schools that have shown interest in participating in this tournament which is also open for senior men and women’s sides.

Last year, Zimbabwe fielded the Under-18 boys and girls select teams who walked away with a gold and silver medal.

“We are preparing teams to go to Cape Town for the Young Masters tournament in August. It’s for junior teams, school teams and colleges. We have started preparations and we have identified some schools that will compete there. We have schools that have shown interest like Selbourne, Haig Park, Danhamombe and Harare Girls High.

“We are working with Nash, so this year on our programme we are targeting 10 schools, we are not selecting players because this year they (the organisers of the tournament) are saying it for different age-groups. They are starting from Under-14s to seniors for both men and women.

“Last year we had our Under-18 select teams from Nash. We won gold for the girls and the boys got silver. But the bulk of players for girls came from Harare’s Girls High School and the boys were selected from different provinces,” said Mtandwa.

Mtandwa said the tournament is also open to clubs and are hoping to have some local teams taking part.

This tournament is run by the Cape Town-based Young Masters Handball Club and according to their chairman, Nikelo Xayiya, apart from Zimbabwe and South Africa, other African countries such as Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland are also expected to send teams to this event.

“The Young Masters tournament has already received the blessings of the Western Cape Handball Association and its partners which include the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government, namely the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport.

“We are also looking at running a coaching course for the coaches that will be coming down here for this tournament and it is expected to be conducted by a top instructor from Germany from August 8-11,” Xayiya recently told The Herald from Cape Town.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe are also expecting to compete at the Africa Union Sports Council Region Five Under-20 championships in South Africa later this year.

Mtandwa, however, said they are facing financial challenges to implement their plans for the championships and the situation has been worsened by the fact that the national executive was suspended early this year.

“We have got challenges in terms of finance because we don’t have a ZHF executive board in place at the moment. So we are working with Nash head-in-charge Beauty Mtsambiwa. She is the one who is assisting us. We have got a grant from the International Handball Federation but that money is not enough,” Mtandwa said.

In their last appearance at the same championships in Zambia, Zimbabwe won bronze medals in both sections and Mtandwa believes with the right preparations and planning, they can do better at this year’s competition.

“We participated in the previous competition in Zambia and we got bronze medals from both teams. If we work hard according to our programme we can beat any team because there is a lot of talent in Zimbabwe.