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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
YOUTH, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister Kirsty Coventry yesterday met with the Ambassador of Georgia, Beka Dvali to discuss possible areas of co-operation between the two countries. The ambassador paid a courtesy call on the minister at her offices in Harare.

Briefing journalists after the meeting, Dvali said there are several areas they believe the two countries can work together with the focus yesterday being on sport, arts and culture.

“I just had a meeting with the Minister, Coventry and it was (a) very warm discussion about prospects of co-operation between our two countries in the areas under her portfolio, the minister especially, we focused on arts, culture and sports.

“Generally my visit, which happened this week was very interesting and successful I believe, in my interactions with the authorities in Zimbabwe.

“For sport Georgia itself we have our priorities in sports ranging from rugby to chess and swimming and water polo and Zimbabwe also tries to have its priorities in sports.

“So this is a dialogue that we begin where our priorities can converge and which are the areas of possible co-operation. So our basic approach and idea is to promote more interactions in these fields, in these areas,” Dvali said. Coventry said co-operating with other countries established in certain sporting disciplines is important for the development of local sport.

“I think it’s very important, I think with Georgia you know their background is rugby and soccer. And so is ours. And with rugby sevens especially now just having won the African Cup that we are very proud of that now takes them (the Cheetahs) to Dubai and Cape Town and hopefully for next year with World Cup something is coming up.

“So Georgia has always been a very strong nation in rugby and if there are things that we can learn of, there are programmes in which their players can come here and play our players we only gain more experience and that at the end of the day is what our athletes need.

“They have a big sporting culture just as we do across many different sports even into chess which is just you know same as Zimbabwe. So we will look at all options and see how we can further open the dialogue,” Coventry.

The Cheetahs defied odds when they were crowned the 2018 Africa Cup rugby champions in Tunisia recently.
Coventry said after yesterday’s meeting they will see how they can progress in the future pointing out that sharing of best practices and information is always a good thing.