THE senior men and women’s national hockey teams will be using the Hockey Association of Zimbabwe (HAZ) Cup to be staged at Khumalo Hockey Stadium in Bulawayo on September 26-27 to prepare for their 2015 Africa Olympic qualifiers.
BY FORTUNE MBELE
The Olympic qualifiers will be held in South Africa from October 24 to November 1 at Randburg Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa.
HAZ vice-president Humphrey Chigwedere yesterday confirmed the HAZ Cup and participation in the Africa Olympic qualifiers, adding the technical team, appointed on September 3, would soon be announcing the provisional teams to represent the country in South Africa.
“The coaches will be selecting the players soon. The HAZ Cup on September 26-27 at Khumalo Hockey Stadium will be used as part of the preparations for the AOQs. Some players are in Bulawayo and the coaches will have to choose various training grounds for selection of the teams,” Chigwedere said.
Harare, Bulawayo and Masvingo will each provide two teams for the HAZ Cup with Midlands and Mashonaland West each providing one team in the men’s section.
The women’s category will only have four teams with two from Harare while Bulawayo and Masvingo will only provide one team each.
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Colin Williams was appointed head coach for the men’s national team and will be assisted by Tongai Mukwewa, while Eddie Chiringa will be in charge of the women with his assistant yet to be appointed.
The managers for the respective teams are Kalpesh Parshotam (men) and Coleen Natival (women).
Team selectors for the men are Williams, Mukwewa, Keith Kachambwa and Chiringa who is also in the women’s selector together with Nicola Watson, Tendayi Maredza and Sarah Bennett.
“The Africa Hockey Federation (AfHF) has moved the tournament from Ismalia (Egypt) to South Africa and HAZ has decided to take part given the relatively lower costs involved in travelling to South Africa. The decision was also taken in the interest of players. The players need this exposure for us to remain competitive internationally since we struggle to raise enough funds to enable our players to travel frequently.”
He added that their main rivals South Africa and Egypt had an advantage over Zimbabwe since their players are always playing in competitions around the world.
HAZ has set a budget of the $30 000 for the Africa Olympic qualifiers which were last hosted by Zimbabwe at Khumalo Hockey Stadium in 2011 with Zimbabwe losing to Egypt, South Africa and Ghana.
