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Ellina Mhlanga

Senior Sports Reporter

THE Zimbabwean pair of Kundai Maguranyanga and Tinotenda Matiyenga had a good start to the 2021-2022 collegiate indoor track and field season in the United States when they appeared at the Wooo Pig Classic as they posted some good times in their respective events.

The two were part of the Texas Christian University team that took part in the indoor event last weekend.

Maguranyanga, now a Redshirt Senior at Texas Christian University, paved the way for his teammates in the 300m event when he clocked 33.14 seconds to finish tops, beating the second-place finisher by .26 seconds.

His fellow countryman Matiyenga, now a Senior at TCU, was placed fourth in the 60m event when posting a time of 6.79 seconds finishing behind teammate Jais Smith, who was third in 6.78 seconds.

Kundai Maguranyanga

It was a good start for the Zimbabwean athletes as they returned to competition for the new season and they will be hoping to build from these performances for the next competitions.

They will be hoping to be part of the team that will be heading to the Aggie Invitational in January at College Station, Texas.

Meanwhile, the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe have released their calendar for the 2022 season.

It will be a busy year with several continental and world events lined up for the youths, juniors and seniors.

The season gets underway in January with the cross country events as usual, and the track and field competitions start in February in different provinces.

Their first continental event for the upcoming season is the Africa Youth Championships expected to take place between February and March. The championships cater for the Under-18s.

It will be followed by the World Indoor Championships scheduled for March in Serbia.

The seniors will be up for the Senior African Championships in June to be hosted by Mauritius and the World Championships from July 15 to 24 in Oregon, United States.

Qualification for the World Championships is already underway and a number of long distance runners have had their first attempt at qualifying for marathon.

However, no one has qualified at the moment and for marathon, they will be hoping they can get the times early in the year, since they need more time to recover before the actual competition.

Some of the runners that have posted promising times include Isaac Mpofu and Ngonidzashe Ncube.