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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
NATIONAL Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (Naaz) is making frantic efforts to organise at least two track and field events for junior athletes to use as qualifiers for the World Junior Championships to be held in Kenya in August.

Junior athletes and the senior men’s relay team failed to travel for qualifying events in Botswana and Nigeria at the weekend due to logistical problems.

Junior track and field athletes targeting World Junior Championships slots were set to travel to Botswana to participate in the neighbouring country’s last qualifying race before the Tokyo Olympic Games’ deadline, whose deadline is Wednesday.

Zimbabwe’s 4x100m men’s team’s Olympic dream collapsed after they failed to make the trip to Lagos, Nigeria where they had been invited to participate in the MoC Relays.

“It’s unfortunate we failed to send athletes for the weekend qualifiers in Botswana and Nigeria. Logistical challenges contributed to the aborted trips. The Olympic dream is over for the relay team and we have Ngoni Makusha as the only athletics competitor in the Olympics.

Focus now shifts to next season,” Lisimathi Phakamile, Naaz national director of coaching and talent identification development, said.

Naaz says it is keen for junior athletes to qualify for the World Junior Championships.

“Now we’re working on organising at least two events where our junior athletes will compete and try to qualify for the World Junior Championships. The deadline for the World Junior Championships qualification is July 31, so we have about four weeks to organise at least two events and we hope the Sports and Recreation Commission will grant us permission to do so,” said Phakamile.

Only Clinton Muunga from Matabeleland South and Samukeliso Ndebele from Matabeleland North have managed to qualify for the World Junior Championships. Muunga and Ndebele qualified for the global juniors’ tournament in the Naaz national championships held in Harare last month.

Meanwhile, Naaz has also indefinitely postponed a training camp for aspiring World Junior Championships athletes due to a resurgence in Covid-19 infections that have forced the Government to impose stricter lockdown regulations.

Naaz had arranged for national team coaches to train selected junior athletes in a camp that was supposed to run for at least a week before qualification races are held. – @ZililoR