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Olympic gold medallist Kisty Coventry will make a comeback at the All Africa Games after a two-year break from competition

Sports Reporter
TEAM Zimbabwe are confident their preparations for the All Africa Games are on course following positive results by some of the athletes who will represent the country in Congo-Brazzaville in September.

The team’s marketing and publicity manager Dave Simba yesterday told The Herald that recent exploits by athletes such as Tangayi Mhlanga, Kirsty Coventry, Keegan Cooke, Benjamin Lock and the Under-23 football team have given them every reason to believe.

Zimbabwe are looking to better their performance at the previous Africa Games held in Mozambique four years ago where they scooped 15 medals and finished 11th among the 43 participating countries.

The organisers have since named their provisional squad and the athletes are currently preparing for the Games.

“We are sending a team full of medal hopefuls. We are looking at something like 100 athletes in 10 disciplines. We have picked those who have been competing at high level, internationally, or in the region.

“We are doing everything possible to make sure that all the athletes are being monitored.

“We have guys from the technical department who are following up on all the athletes to see how they are performing ahead of the Games.

“Kirsty Coventry recently bettered her own record and again we had karateka Mhlanga who claimed a silver medal in Spain at the weekend,” said Simba.

Olympic gold medalist Coventry, who is making a comeback following a two-year break, recently broke her African record at the 2015 Arena Pro Swim meet in Charlotte, United States, in the finals of the 50 backstroke with her time of 28,23s.

She has also had a series of podium finishes which include two silver medals in Monaco at the weekend.

United States-based Zimbabwean decathlete, Cooke, also broke his standing national record recently, while karateka Mhlanga is still basking in the glory of scooping silver at a tournament in Spain at the weekend.

However, some of the athletes have not been involved in regular activity of late but are training as individuals or at their clubs.

“We have a medical team to follow up on those who are in small towns, on the peripherals, to continuously monitor their fitness.

“There are some guys who hide injuries we want to be satisfied that we are sending a squad that is fully fit.”

Simba said the team was hoping to camp in the last week of August at Prince Edward School to work on bonding.

The organisers are still looking for sponsors and they will host a fund-raising dinner most likely next month to boost their purse.

“Of course, the government should be the major stakeholder in this but we want more sponsors to come on board. We have since started writing to corporates to partner us,” said Simba.