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Ellina Mhlanga
Sports Reporter
ATHLETICS coach David Tinago believes the engagement of South African coach Thabo Matebedi will go a long way in assisting sprinter Ngoni Makusha achieve his goal of qualifying for the Olympics. Makusha, accompanied by Tinago, is in South Africa for a one-month camp at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria where he is working with one of the top coaches in South Africa, Matebedi. The camp is expected to give Makusha competitive training partners and among the athletes he is training with is Sinesipho Dambile.  Dambile was part of the 4x200m relay team that won a silver medal at the World Relays in Yokohama, Japan, last year.

“Coach Thabo has been producing some of the best athletes in South Africa. Currently he is coaching one of the fastest boys in the world called Dambile, he runs 100m and 200m.

“We took this opportunity for us to be able to benefit from his experience and also to benefit on his training group as well since Ngoni will be training with one of the best athletes in the world and also the experience to be coached by one of the best coaches in the world.

“And me as well, as a coach, I am learning a lot of things through this experience,” Tinago said.

Tinago believes the change of environment does help the athlete and as he approaches the competition phase he needs to do all they can to create an enabling environment for him to make the grade.

“This is very important for us in this phase that we are going towards. As we get to competition phase this will help us in polishing up our strategies, polishing up our technique.

“And also in terms of training partners, he will be training with one of the fastest guys in the world. Also this will push him to reach towards his goal as the training partners most of them they are aiming for the same goal that he is aiming,” said Tinago.

The target is for Makusha to qualify for both 100m and 200m.

For this camp coach Tinago also took with him an upcoming sprinter Makanakaishe Charamba.

“I do have an upcoming junior who is turning into a senior athlete now, so this camp also helps him to switch into a senior. He does really have potential of really becoming one of the best sprinters in Zimbabwe,” added Tinago.

Before his departure to South Africa, Makusha, who is on an Olympic Scholarship, was training with Dickson Kamungeremu under the guidance of Tinago.

However, Kamungeremu could not travel to South Africa due to financial challenges and is appealing for assistance so that he can also go to the High Performance Centre.

Last year they went together with as a team including Tatenda Tsumba and Itayi Vambe with the support of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee and the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe.

But this time around the national association is planning for a local camp and those that went to South Africa are funding themselves.

Tsumba and Vambe have since relocated to the UK and South Africa respectively.

NAAZ president, Tendai Tagara, said they are looking at a local camp that will also include juniors that have the World Under-20 Championships next year.

“We will organise a camp either in January or February that will be based in Zimbabwe. If we had planned the camp in South Africa we would not have failed to fund it. We want to plan a camp for a team of 10 including juniors.

“The coach wanted it in December but the challenge is because of juniors, schools are opening early and we still have to look at how best we can go about it,” said Tagara.