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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
Organisers of the Mashrhino Handball Cup are convinced their efforts to contribute to the growth of the sport are paying off after they successfully held the fourth edition of the tournament over the weekend at Jameson High School in Kadoma.

The tournament attracted 27 teams from Mashonaland West that participated in the Under-20, Under-16 and Under-13 boys and girls sections.

Sodbury High School and Jameson High School emerged winners in the Under-20 boys and girls.

Chinhoyi High dominated the Under-16 age-group when they came out tops for both boys and girls.

They went on to claim the Under-13 boys category as well while Munhumutapa Primary were the overall winners in the girls section.

Mashrhino co-ordinator, Stephen Chamangwa, said the event is a platform for talent identification and selection of their provincial teams.

“This was the fourth edition of the Mashrhino Cup. The basic idea of this Cup is when we have this tournament, we select players who go for national, regional and international events.

“We select players for the Mashonaland West National Youth Games team.

“So far at national level, Mashonaland West is doing well in handball. For example last year when we went to the National Youth Games our Girls Under-17 got gold and the boys got silver. We managed to send our teams to Sweden for the Partille Cup though they did not perform well,” said Chamangwa.

However, this year they will not be part of the Partille Cup pencilled for July 2 to 7 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

“We have gone for the Partille Cup three times. This year we are not going, we have had some challenges but we are preparing to go to Germany in October,” said Chamangwa.

The Zimbabwe Handball Federation have indicated that so far only Harare’s Girls High School are likely to take part in the world’s largest handball tournament for juniors and youths in terms of participants.

ZHF secretary-general Edison Chirowodza said the national federation cannot afford to send teams at the moment because of financial challenges.

“As a national federation we are not sending teams but we have clubs that have been registering. We have Harare Girls High School, so far they are the only club that have shown interest to take part in the Partille Cup.

“It’s just an international invitational tournament, so for at the moment we don’t have the capacity to fund the teams,’’ said Chirowodza.