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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter

FOLLOWING suspension of all cross-country events for this season, the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) has tabled an application to hold at least three major events by March 20.

Naaz was forced to cancel the national cross-country competition scheduled for February 20 in Kadoma after failing to get an exemption from the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) to host the event.

Provinces would have held their qualifiers for the event whose objective is to give middle and long distance runners the platform to assess their state of preparedness for different competitions and races in the build-up to the national meet.

Naaz president Tendai Tagara said they hope to get permission to hold three major events before March 20.

“Covid-19 has really affected our calendar. We are almost done with a document that we’ll send to the SRC for consideration. We’ve lost out on the cross-country and because we have the Olympics, Africa Senior Championships and World Junior Championships coming up between June and August, we want to hold a qualification race at White City Stadium where we have electronic timers.

“All Covid-19 protocols will be observed if we get clearance. We proved that we can host safe events last year when we were cleared to host a track event at White City Stadium,” said Tagara.

March 20 had been reserved as the World Athletics Cross-Country Championships date before the event was postponed to February 2022 in Bathurst, Australia. – @ZililoR