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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter

THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) has indefinitely postponed a training camp for aspiring World Junior Championships athletes due to Covid-19.

Also known as the World Athletics Under-20 Championships, the World Junior Championships will be held in Kenya from August 17-22.

Naaz had arranged for national team coaches to train selected junior athletes during a camp that was supposed to run for at least a week before qualification races.

Lisimathi Phakamile, Naaz national director of coaching and talent identification development, said athletes are now training individually while waiting for qualifying races outside the country.

Qualification for the World Junior Championships ends on July 31.

“Not all hope has been lost in terms of getting more athletes to qualify for the World Junior Championships. Obviously, suspension of sporting activities due to Covid-19 has affected our plans as we have indefinitely suspended a training camp for junior athletes. The facilities that we would have used are public amenities, which we can’t access. So, what is happening now is that athletes are training on their own at home,” said Phakamile.

Two sprinters, Clinton Muunga of Matabeleland South and Samukeliso NNdebele from Matabeleland North, have qualified for the World Junior Championships.

Muunga and Ndebele qualified for the global juniors’ meet in the Naaz national championships held in Harare last month.

Muunga qualified for both the 100m and 200m races after running the races in 10.46 seconds and 21.21 seconds.

The qualifying time for the junior men is 10.58 seconds for 100m and 21.38 seconds for 200m.

Ndebele qualified for the women’s 200m World Junior Championships finals after registering 23.30 seconds. The standard qualifying time for the competition is 24.35 seconds. – @ZililoR