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Harare Bureau 

JUDO Association of Zimbabwe president, Smart Deke, says there is room for improvement for their athletes after they found the going tough at the ongoing African Games in Morocco.  

Judo contributed seven athletes to Team Zimbabwe that is representing the country at the 12th edition of continental Games. 

The judo team concluded its participation at the Games yesterday and the best performance came from Lazarus Arufandika, who won two matches before losing the third one to finish seventh out of 30 participants in the 73kg weight division. 

Moses Mutendi (73kg) and Christi-Rose Pretorius (78kg) won their first matches but lost the second round while the quartet of Sydney Mutero (91kg), Janine Kayaya (63kg), Majaji Musariri (66kg) and Benjamin Mashayi (81kg) lost in the first matches. 

“Overall Zimbabwe we had very talented athletes, looking at the performance of the athletes versus the support they get in terms of exposure, I am impressed with the way Lazarus and Moses performed. 

“As senior athletes Lazarus, this is his second African Games, which he nearly won a medal. 

“He is a very talented athlete that needs more exposure, he stand chances of getting Olympic points. 

“Moses, this is his first time to participate at the African Games. He has been doing judo for a long time but with financial challenges we only managed to get his sponsorship to participate in the South Africa Judo Championship this year in June where he showed his best talent in preparation for the African Games.

“We are happy with the two young athletes who are 16 years Majaji Musariri and Christi-Rose, they have a bright future if support is there in preparing them for 2023 Africa Games and 2024 Olympic Games,” said Deke.

Seasoned judoka Mutero had been hoping for a podium finish and to push for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games qualification.

He said lack of exposure was their major setback. 

“The problem was that we did not really get enough exposure from the last to this one. We did not travel enough, we did not get enough camps.

”In Congo I made it to the semi-finals and I was in the 81kgs, now I have moved to a slightly heavier weight category, I need to adjust to it a bit more, so I need to tour a little bit more,” Mutero said.

The women beach volleyball team consisting of Progress Gasa and Nyengeterai Guyo, lost all their pool C matches against Mauritius, Rwanda and Algeria. 

They lost their first match to Mauritius 2-0 (21-11, 21-8) on Friday. They went on to suffer another 2-0 (21-19, 21-14) defeat at the hands of Algeria. It was the same story against Rwanda as they lost 2-0 (21-8, 24-22). 

However, they beat Benin 2-0 (21-10, 21-14) and Senegal 2-0 (21-17, 21-8) yesterday in the placement matches to conclude their participation on position 13. 

Zimbabwe will be hoping the other sport codes that are still to compete will produce better results at the Games running until August 31.