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Harare Bureau
THERE was no joy for the Zimbabwe women’s field hockey side at the on-going Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they lost their first two Pool B preliminary round matches to Australia and Poland on Sunday and Monday.

According to reports from Buenos Aires, Zimbabwe were first hammered 10-0 by Australia in their opening Pool B match on Sunday before they improved their performance to go down 2-1 to Poland the following day.

On Monday, Zimbabwe managed to draw first blood after four minutes through a field goal by Alexei Terblanche but the Polish quickly hit back with two-quick fire field goals from Dzesika Mazur (5th minute) and captain Julia Balcerzak (6th minute).

All the three goals were scored in the first-half of a tightly-contested match which could have gone either way as the girls from Zimbabwe gave a good account of themselves against their opponents from the eastern European country.

Goalkeeper Munashe Dangare, captain Simone Herbst, Taya Trivella, Lilian Pope, Gugulethu Sithole, Terblanche, Mercedes Bekes, Natalia Terblanche and Adrienne Jenna Berkhout represented Zimbabwe in this match under coach Tendayi Maredza.

Zimbabwe had opened their campaign in Pool B on a poor note as they were hammered 10-0 by Australia on Sunday but they quickly got their act together and put up a good fight against Poland who they restricted to two first-half goals on Monday.

They were scheduled to play their third Pool B match against China late last night before taking on Mexico this afternoon.

Tomorrow Zimbabwe have a date with fellow African country Namibia in their last Pool B match.

Apart from the women’s field hockey, Zimbabwe are competing in five more sport codes – athletics, equestrian, judo, rowing and swimming – at this year’s Youth Olympic Games where they are being represented by 15 athletes – 13 females and two males.

In athletics, Zimbabwe have entered only one athlete, 16-year-old Privilege Chikara who is expected to compete in the women’s 1 500m event later this week, while in judo, the country’s sole representative 15-year-old Christi Rose Pretorius was scheduled to fight Czech Republic’s Ester Svobodova in women’s -78kg elimination round of 16 late last night.

Swimmer Liam Davis (18) is scheduled to carry the Zimbabwean flag in the heats of the men’s 200m backstroke today while rowers David Maonga (16) and Lorryn Base (17) were competing in the junior men’s and women’s singles sculls respectively.

Brianagh Clark (17) is Zimbabwe’s sole representative in equestrian in which she first competed for Team Africa together with Ahmed Nasser Elnaggar of Egypt, Zambia’s Anna Howard, Hannah Garton of South Africa and Mauritian Margaux Koenig in Round One of the Internation Team event on Monday and were ranked fourth behind Europe, Australasia and North America.

The quartet of Clark, who is mounting El Roblecito Malaika, Elnaggar, Howard and Garton were also expected to take part in Round Two of the same event yesterday.

After competing in the International Team event, Clark will also represent Zimbabwe in the individual competition which gets underway on Friday.

The 2018 Youth Olympic Games, which got underway on Saturday, will run until October 18.