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PRESIDENT Mugabe on Monday urged Team Zimbabwe for this year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from August 5-21 to bring home medals to add to the country’s tally that stands at eight medals since independence.

The President gave the charge to athletes and officials at a send-off ceremony at State House in Harare and assured them of the whole nation’s support, but what the officials didn’t tell the President was that Team Zimbabwe’s preparations were actually not deserving of a presidential send-off.

One thing that most athletes, particularly those in Team Zimbabwe’s Olympics side for the first time, will not forget in their life time is the presidential send-off and their presence in the huge seaside city of Rio de Janeiro, which is famed for its Copacabana and Ipanema beaches.

Taking into account preparations needed to win an Olympic medal, most of our locally-based athletes will probably want to forget their experiences on the track and field as they will come up against sportsmen and women that underwent months of training for the event, while they were waiting for a phone call to be told what next.

Although it was all smiles as Team Zimbabwe officials presented our athletes to President Mugabe, it is disheartening that their smiles only served to pepper the non-existent preparations each athlete should have been afforded for the Olympics.

The Olympic Games are the biggest stage for every athlete and all those that have been winning Olympic medals had quality preparation, but not Team Zimbabwe athletes. The biggest achievement our officials managed was to get Team Zimbabwe a presidential send-off, but where it mattered most in giving athletes adequate support to prepare to meet the world’s best, the same smiling officials were found wanting.

It is for this reason that while we wish Team Zimbabwe every success in Brazil, we also think nobody should expect much from our athletes because their preparations were like a Sunday afternoon picnic compared to the competitors they will come up against in Rio.
While some countries were rounding up their preparations for the games last week, our athletes still had no idea what sort of competition they will encounter in Rio.

We feel particular pity for our brave women’s national soccer team the Mighty Warriors, who qualified for the games without much support. They have seemingly been sent to Rio as sacrificial lambs, having been denied the opportunity to play friendlies against similar opponents they will meet in Brazil.

Yes, the Mighty Warriors beat Cameroon to qualify for the Olympics, but more should have been done to prepare them for the world stage against the best. Their neighbours Banyana Banyana of South Africa played in the most high-profile match in their history on Saturday night when they faced world champions United States of America and lost by a single goal.

While Banyana were in Chicago preparing for the Olympics against red hot gold medal favourites, our Mighty Warriors were probably preparing to leave Bindura where they had been camping, preparing for the biggest tournament of their lives.

The contrast is vast and we can only pray that the occasion doesn’t overawe our girls when they troop onto the pitch against the mighty Germans in their opening encounter.

Whatever the outcome, we implore Team Zimbabwe athletes to, in the words of President Mugabe, make as many friends as they can and avoid making enemies because “just being there is a great achievement for you and for us”. If our preparations could have matched the encouragement and good wishes, we would have been more hopeful, but because we failed where it mattered most, our athletes’ presence in Rio is a big individual achievement.