The Zimbabwe Volleyball Association (ZVA) has resolved not to send the men and women’s national teams for the Indoor London 2012 Olympic qualifiers.
ZVA said the teams are not ready after they failed to make the grade in some regional tournaments.
Also the lack of funds and late notification of the venues were cited as other reasons for the withdrawal.
The women’s section qualifiers are pencilled in for Algeria from January 28 to February 5 while the men’s team was expected to travel to Yaounde in Cameroon from January 12-21 for the qualifiers.
ZVA secretary-general Ringisai Mapondera yesterday confirmed that the resolution was passed during the fourth quarterly board of administrators meeting held in Harare on Tuesday.
“We have decided we will no longer be sending the teams to the Olympic qualifiers because we were told of the venues late and we cannot raise the required $120 000 to send the teams,” he said.
“Our teams failed to qualify for the All-Africa Games last year so we felt they were not ready to participate in an even a bigger competition like the Olympic qualifiers. Our team has not been in camp so we did not want to go there just to make up numbers.”
He revealed that a committee which will be headed by the association’s first vice-president (competitions) Enzanai Madzivire was tasked with ensuring they get more teams coming to participate in the national league.
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“We want to encourage provinces and even military institutions to have teams playing in the league. We want to infiltrate these institutions as we believe that would increase the level of competition as well as standards of the sport,” he said.
Mapondera said they would also continue with the talent identification programme which is going to help them nurture talent from as young as eight years.
There was also the confirmation of the annual general meeting that will be held in Masvingo next month.
