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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) has postponed a World Athletics (WA) high-level coaching course that had been earmarked for Bulawayo from Thursday to allow teachers time to adapt in schools.

Tendai Tagara, Naaz president, said the 10-day WA Coach Education and Certification System Level 1 course had been postponed at the behest of the majority of participants, who are teachers.

The course, which has also attracted foreign participants, was pushed back to October 21-30.

“Everything is set for the course in terms of logistics, registration and instructors. Unfortunately, we’ve had to push back the course by a month as the majority of participants are the teachers, who are the key target audience for this programme because they deal with grassroots development of athletics.

“In our initial planning, the September dates fell within the schools’ holiday, but because of Covid-19, the schools’ calendar has been affected. It’s is only proper that teachers go to school and after a month we can then have our course,” said Tagara.

“The class is full. We’ve had to reduce the number of participants from 20 to 16 to abide by Covid-19 standard operating procedures. We did it last year when we split the class into two, but now we feel it’s best to have few participants.”

Five participants from Botswana have registered for the programme.

The WA Coach Education and Certification System Level 1 course is the first stage of international athletics coaching and participants will cover all the basics of the sport such as track and field  programmes as well as medium and long-distance training.

Upon completion of the programme, participants will be qualified to coach beginners up to Under-18s. — @ZililoR