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Ellina Mhlanga Senior Sports Reporter

NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe’s youth and juniors coach Briad Nhubu has said there is still more to be done to get their athletes ready for the African Union Sports Council Region Five Youth Games.

The Games are scheduled for December 2 to 12 in Maseru, Lesotho.

Athletics is part of Team Zimbabwe going for the Games and is expected to join camp for Team Zimbabwe this week.

The camp got underway last Friday with football being the first sport code in.

“Athletes have been training under the auspices of their schools and clubs because NAAZ could not come up with a camp since we had just opened schools in September.

“Due to that we have been working with the club coaches, so the athletes have been under the control of those coaches, of which most of them have been doing basics to keep athletes in form.

“Basically now we are going to look at the level of fitness, general conditioning, and then we will look at event specific techniques and tactics that we can improve,” Nhubu said.

Some of the athletes expected to be part of the team include Samkeliso Ndebele, who represented Zimbabwe at the World Under-20 Championships in Kenya.

“We have Denzel Siyamulela, who was close to qualifying for the World Junior Championships. He is one of those guys we are hoping will lead the boys. Samkeliso Ndebele is still eligible to participate, she is going to lead the girls.

“We are banking on her experience since she is the one who went to the World Junior Championships in Kenya.

“We have some hopefuls that we think if all goes well, they have been showing good performance. Panashe Nhenga, Nontokozo Ncube are some of them.

“However, my fear is that some of their events may be a challenge. Yes they are promising but when you talk of sprints and we meet South Africa, Namibia and Botswana it may be a challenge. So basically those are the athletes I can say may be the torchbearers.

“We also have Ryan Dube, he is doing long jump. There is also David Nyamufarira, doing hurdles,” said Nhubu.