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Idensohn ruled out of African Games

Sport
FORMER Zimbabwe Youth Olympic swimmer, Chad Idensohn has been ruled out of the upcoming African Games (formerly known as the All-Africa Games) to be held in Congo Brazzaville due to illness.

FORMER Zimbabwe Youth Olympic swimmer, Chad Idensohn has been ruled out of the upcoming African Games (formerly known as the All-Africa Games) to be held in Congo Brazzaville due to illness.

BY DANIEL NHAKANISO

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The 50th anniversary of the quadrennial multi-national meet, which encompasses a total of 34 sporting disciplines, kicks-off tomorrow, with swimming events slated to take place from September 6-11.

Idensohn, who represented Zimbabwe at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, was expected to be part of a strong swimming team which is headlined by seven-time Olympic medallist Kirsty Coventry.

Other members of the team are California State University’s Tarryn Rennie, University of Kentucky-based Sean Gunn and the South Africa-based pair of Peter Wetzlar and James Lawson.

Zimbabwe swimming team manager, Lorna Riley told NewsDay Sport that Idensohn, who is on a swimming scholarship at Arizona State University, had indicated that he was not able to make the trip.

“Unfortunately Chad Idensohn won’t be participating at the African Games due to illness. I’m not in a position to go into details at this stage, but can confirm that although he was really looking forward to representing Zimbabwe, he is unable to do so,” she said.

Riley, together with the coach Gareth Desmond and South Africa-based Lawson, left the country last night and were supposed to link up with Tarryn Rennie in Addis Ababa en route to Brazzaville.

The other US-based trio of Wetzlar, Gunn and Coventry are expected to arrive in Brazzaville from tomorrow ahead of the start of the swimming competition on Sunday.

Riley said the swimming team had a strong chance of returning home with some medals, but also emphasised that it would also be a learning curve for some of the swimmers.

“Our chances of winning medals are fairly good especially with Kirsty Coventry in the team. She has been in good form and will be looking to build the momentum as she prepares for the Olympic Games in Rio,” she said.

“For the boys the average age is just 20, so for them it will be mostly about gaining experience. They will come up against some very strong swimmers from South Africa and Egypt, who did very well at the Fina World Championships,” said Riley.

This will be Coventry’s third African Games appearance, having already competed at the 2007 and 2011 editions held in Algeria and Mozambique respectively.

She holds an impressive five meet records across the 50m, 100m and 200m backstroke and the 200m Individual Medley (IM) and 400m IM events.

Coventry recently qualified for her fifth Olympic Games, securing her spot in Rio with her 100m backstroke time of 1:00.09 at the World Championships in Kazan.

Zimbabwe, will be represented by 114 athletes in 10 sporting disciplines namely athletics (track and field), beach volleyball, cycling, gymnastics, football, judo, karate, taekwondo, tennis, swimming and sport for the disabled.

Four years ago in Maputo, Zimbabwe finished 11th out of 43 countries with six gold, seven silver and two bronze medals.