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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
THE Confederation of Schools Sport Associations of Southern Africa Athletics Championships began yesterday at the National Sports Stadium with Zimbabwe asserting their dominance in most of the events.

The regional competition is catering for Under-13s, Under-15s who are competing for the first time and Under-17s.

Zimbabwe are the defending champions and they picked several gold medals on the first day to start their campaign on a positive note and most of them came from the 1500m for the three age-groups.

They got gold medals in the girls’ 12-13 age group 1500m through Beauty Ngwenya in a time of 4:44.66 mins while Belin Nyautemba came second for a silver medal.

It was the same story in the 14 to 15 section with Priviledge Chikara coming first in 4:36.54 mins as well as the 16 to 17 where Arge Mutombo got gold in 4:39.38 mins.

It was a clean sweep for boys’ 12-13 years 1500m with Liberty Shava bagging another gold for Zimbabwe in 4:29.16 mins. He was followed by Abraham Musekiwa and Lucky Mpofu on second and third positions.

Passmore Gangarambwe and William Banda claimed gold in the 14-15 years 1500m and 12 to 13 years long jump respectively.

Philani Ndlovu and Chomurenga Masimba settled for silver and bronze in long jump. While Shyle Chikwaradza scooped gold in javelin, 16 to 17 years.

Despite the competition starting a bit late because of logistical problems, Nash head in charge of athletics Philip Chikomwe said they are on track.

“We started very well and our team started at a very high note. The first six track events, 1500m was a clean sweep for Zimbabwe.

“In the field events we are performing very well bearing in mind that, that’s an area where we had a weakness in the past. But so far we have got three gold medals. If we continue like that we will retain our championship,” said Chikomwe.

National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe director of coaching, talent identification and development Lisimati Phakamile was impressed with team Zimbabwe yesterday.

“I am very hopeful of Zimbabwe defending this. From what we have seen so far, the number of gold medals that we have scooped on day one, we are at a very good rate. If we continue at the same rate definitely we are winning the competition,” said Phakamile.

Namibia picked gold in the girls 12 -13 high jump and boys 14-15 discus while Botswana got gold in girls 14 – 15 shot put. Botswana public relations officer, Laurence Moseki, said if the competition had started as scheduled they could have done better in some areas.

“I just feel we started well though we started very late because of technical problems and also the weather was unfavourable to us because it was too hot for our athletes.

“But let me mention that we have certain categories, like in the field events, we managed to obtain gold in shot put Under-15. In Under-13 we managed to obtain bronze in high jump. So to me we are almost there,” said Moseki.