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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe president Tendai Tagara has urged the country’s rising stars to make the grade for the IAAF World Championships.

NAAZ are tipping the United States-based duo of Kundai Maguranyanga and Cloud Masibhera for success.

The pair opened the year with outstanding performances when they came tops in their events during the Graduate Classic at Lincoln in Nebraska recently.

Maguranyanga (20) was the first to cross the finish line in the men’s 200m event in 21.20 seconds at the indoor meet while, in long jump, Masibhera (21) claimed the top spot with a leap of 7.29m.

With the IAAF World Championships scheduled for September 27 to October 6 in Qatar, the two are among Zimbabwe’s athletes aiming to qualify for the world meet.

“This is the start of the season, they can run the time but the qualifying standards are very tough this time and if you look at it, for example for 200m (men), only 56 athletes will compete at the World Championships.

“So you can see the standard is very high. A time of 20.40 (for men) is not a joke so I am happy for these guys.

‘’Maguranyanga is just starting and 200m is one of his best events so the prospects are good. If he can improve in the next two to three meets then he can easily run a 20.40.

“If you look at Masibhera, for long jump qualification is 8.17m, so that is a bit far from the qualifying standard, which is almost a metre.

‘’But, technically, in the next few weeks if he can jump around eight metres then the prospects will be closer.

“I am happy they have started well, the beginning is good and it shows that they can do well. But the issue is we must try to push early so that they run good times closer to the qualifying times,” said Tagara.

Maguranyanga was part of the team that picked nine medals at the 2017 African Junior Championships in Algeria.

He was part of the 4x100m relay team that picked one of the gold medals at the meet and he went on to clinch silver in the 200m event.

NAAZ are also banking on locally-based athletes such as sprinter Ngoni Makusha, who represented the country at the African Senior Championships last August in Nigeria.

They have also earmarked another United States-based sprinter Tinotenda Matiyenga for the 100m event with qualification time set at 10.10 seconds for men and 11.24 seconds for women.

“I can see Makusha can easily run that time. Matiyenga is doing well, he can run that time. Those are the two prospects mainly for 100m because they are coming closer to that time.

“Those are the major prospects for Doha. But definitely I can see a track runner in Doha,” said Tagara.