The National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (NAAZ) will stage the 2018 inter-provincial track and field championships at University of Zimbabwe next month. The championships are scheduled to run from May 12 to 13. Athletes from across the country’s ten provinces will compete in track events which include 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 4x100m races.
BY FREEMAN MAKOPA
In field events, athletes will compete in discus, short put, javelin, high, long and triple jumps.
Naaz vice-president responsible for development, Enias Nhoro, said they were finalising the preparations.
“Let me say we are on the right track as we have seen all the provinces sending in their teams in previous tournaments and Harare as the host province is working on all logistics to ensure we have a successful tournament,” he said. “We are having these tournaments to expose our athletes to more games so that they meet international standards.”
Nhoro said the tournament will be used to select both the juniors and seniors to represent the countries at Region Five and Youth Games respectively.
“We are not only gearing for inter-provincials, but we have upcoming international games that we are bracing for such as the Region Five and the seniors are going to Botswana,” he said.
“The event will be used to assess athletes for Youth Olympics, World Junior, African Union Sports Council Region Five and Africa Senior Championships and electronic timing will be used. Junior athletes will be hoping to catch the eyes of the selectors, so we are going to see a tight competition. The idea is to make sure our athletes also qualify into the team.”
