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Mbachi Mutukula-Maregere Sports Reporter
ORGANISERS of the Bob 91 Basketball Tournament are set to reward their outstanding performers at this year’s competition at an awards ceremony to be held at Zanu (PF) Headquarters in Harare tonight.

Top local side JBC scooped a gold medal after beating Matero of Zambia 46-38 in the final which was recently held at Belvedere Technical Teachers College.

The visitors from Zambia will, however, also be honoured after having settled for second place and winning a silver medal. JBC’s Tatenda Maturure, who was the Most Valuable Player of the tournament, will also receive his prize following his fine contribution to his team’s triumph. To win the tournament, JBC beat Hustlers 53-42 in the semi-finals in a match that was highly competitive to book a place in the final against the Zambians.

The Bob 91 Basketball Tournament chairperson Tendai “T-Buns” Zhakata said the preparations for the awards ceremony have now reached an advanced stage as they have secured enough sponsors for the prizes.

“We were very glad that we now have sponsors for the awards night. We saw the players in numbers, the tournament witnessed a huge turn-out.

“We have a lot of talented boys and girls and it was good they came. The winners deserve the awards and therefore we are happy that Astro, a company for mobile phones, has come on board.

“The winners are going to walk away with cellphones and we are expecting our neighbours Zambia to attend this ceremony and collect their prizes.

“The Bob 91 event was a very important tournament as we have realised that President Mugabe being our President and the chairman of both the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) is worth celebrating through basketball.

“Our President is very dedicated to his people and we are happy that we celebrated his 91st birthday through playing basketball. We are all looking forward to the awards night where we are going to give the prizes away,” said Zhakata.