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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter

A possible results collation scam has been exposed at the recently held Matabeleland North Naph and Nash inter-district track and field athletics competitions that were held at Mosi-oa-Tunya High School in Victoria Falls last week.

The two-day competition was held on Thursday and Friday last week, with host district Hwange coming tops in both the National Association of Primary School Heads (Naph) and National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash) categories with 21 gold medals each.

But, a few days after the event, questions have been raised on the authenticity of the official results released after one of the districts Bubi discovered that their Nash team was disenfranchised of its actual gold medals following a physical count.

The initial results announced said Bubi had eight gold medals when, in fact, 12 of their athletes were presented with gold medals.

“We have since lodged a formal complaint with the province so that this anomaly can be addressed. Following a physical count of medals in our camp, we discovered that 12 athletes actually got gold medals instead of eight,” said the Bubi head-in-charge of athletics Cain Ncube.

According to the district, their gold medal winning athletes were Sibonisiwe Tshuma (400m hurdles), Mandlenkosi Ngwenya (100m and 400m hurdles), Cathrine Zondo (100m hurdles, triple jump), Omega Ncube (400m hurdles), Phil Vincent (triple jump), Kimberly Mpengesi (high jump, Under-17 boys medley relay), Bonang Ncube (400m), Michelle Sibanda (shot put) and Nomvelo Ncube (200m).

Efforts to get a comment from the Matabeleland North head-in-charge of athletics Thabani Nkomo were in vain as his mobile number was not going through yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Matabeleland North Nash athletics provincial squad is expected to troop into camp at Gloag High School today to prepare for the national finals that are set for Midlands Christian College in Gweru next week.