before their departure for Mozambique.
As they left for Maputo, Team Zimbabwe felt they would reap 30 medals to improve on the tally of 23 they won during the last Games in Algiers, Algeria, four years ago.
Swimming queen, Kirsty Coventry, once again put an outstanding performance as she won four individual gold medals in Maputo.

Chess grandmaster Robert Gwaze got the other gold from the board while tennis ace Takanyi Garangan’a was the top player in men’s singles tennis.
Zimbabwe had six gold medals while visually handicapped sprinter Nyaradzai Tagarira got a silver from the T13 category of the 100m with the swimming team contributing another six silver medals.
Nicole Horn won a silver in the women’s 50m free-style with the team coming second in the 4x100m medley.

Coventry anchored the team that had Samatha Welch, Kirsten Lapham and Horn.
Welch also got a bronze as Garangan’a and Mark Fynn settled for bronze in the men’s doubles in tennis.
Zimbabwe were placed 11th out of 44 countries which took part, a slight drop from coming out eighth in Algiers.

Tirivashe Nheweyembwa, who was Team Zimbabwe’s liaison officer for Maputo Games, feels they could have fared better if the full compliment of the athletics team had made it for the Games.
The athletics team was left a weaker unit after medal hopefuls Ngoni Makusha, Gabriel Mvumvure, Namatirayi Mawugara and Brian Dzingai failed to travel to Maputo.
“Talk before the Games was to win at least 30 medals but at the end of the Games were had half the medals.

“Athletics were the major let down. We had built our Team Zimbabwe on a solid athletics team with the United States-based stars. “But before the Games, we had Namatirai pulling out because of injuries while Makusha and Mvumvure failed to take part because of their college commitments.

“It was really unfortunate that the athletes could not represent their country because of their scholarships and that weakened our team.
“When these athletes go on a scholarship, they are so much tied to it that there is little room for the national association to get in.
“Maybe we should try in future to have clauses that will allow the scholarships to release the athletes for national duty if they are fit, but right now as a nation we did not have much say,” said Nheweyembwa.

He said Nigeria managed to get some of their top athletes from the United States colleges while Zimbabwe failed.
“The timing of the Games coincided with their school commitments but Nigeria managed to get some of their people,” said Nheweyembwa.
Martial artists – judo and taekwondo- who had contributed medals over the years from the Pan African Games, found the going tough this time while boxers were just pummeled into submission.

There was no respite for the Mighty Warriors who buckled under a lot of expectations while the netball and women’s basketball sides failed to rise to the occasion.
Nheweyembwa, who also works at the Sports Commission’s Youth Education Through Sport, said Zimbabwe still had a long way to go to be counted among the top five at the All-Africa Games.
“As a nation, we need to have a high performance policy to get the medals.

“It was not a mean achievement for the athletes who managed to win medals.
“There is need to have a proper budget and planning for the Games and we should start by looking at the National University of Science and Technology who are offering a high level qualification in sports science yet we are still lagging behind in having a high level centre for athletes,” he said.

Meanwhile, Team Zimbabwe are expected to meet President Mugabe on Monday at State House. “The team should have met His Excellency before going to Maputo.
“At the same time this is still a good opportunity as we will be able to appraise him on our performance in Maputo and the way we had prepared,” said Nheweyembwa.

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