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Ellina Mhlanga, Harare Bureau
THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe have named their provisional team for the African Under-18 and Under-20 Championships and the athletes are now expected to work towards improving their times.

The meet will be in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, from April 16 to 20.

The Under-18 (youth) and the Under-20 (junior) competition will run concurrently and the local athletics motherbody named a 26-member provisional team for the assignments.

The national association took advantage of the first leg of the JM Busha Series at White City Stadium in Bulawayo over the weekend, and other previous competitions, to identify the athletes.

Some of the athletes that made the provisional team include Simbarashe Maketa, Vimbai Maisvoreva, Donovan Mutariswa and Masciline Watama.

They were all members of the youth team at the IAAF World Under-18 Championships in 2017.

There is also Priviledge Chikara, who represented the country at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Argentina, as well as Brian Ndlovu and Dorothy Kavhumbura.

National youth and juniors coach Briad Nhubu said they used other competitions to pick some of the athletes since they could not all attend Saturday’s meet in Bulawayo.

NAAZ president Tendai Tagara said as the selected athletes begin to focus on the African Championships, there was room for improvement.

With the IAAF World Under-20 Championships on next year in Nairobi, Kenya, the continental meet forms part of the build-up to the global competition.