The Bulawayo Metropolitan Province athletics team is in camp for the National Association of Secondary School Heads (Nash) cross-country, track and field competitions in Plumtree, Matabeleland South, on April 3-4.
The country’s 10 provinces are expected to converge at Plumtree High School next week for the national athletics competitions, which were last year hosted in Bindura, Mashonaland Central.
Gift Chiguvare, the Bulawayo Province team manager, yesterday confirmed the camping, which began on Monday and said he believe they had a strong team that will bring gold.
“Training is at Milton where the boys are housed while the girls are putting up at Eveline Girls’ High. They went into camp on Monday and so far everything has been going on very well. The coaches’ programmes are in full force although this year, we went into camp a bit late,” Chiguvare said.
He added: “Our team is quite good. Last year we came out on position six, but we hope to improve this year to number three or four. We are still to return to the Bulawayo of yesteryear, when we had quite a number of the clubs in the city. We now only have one club (Sparrows) and the calibre of athletes has gone down. But still I believe we have a very strong team.”
The athletes for the Bulawayo team were selected during the inter-zonal competitions at Ihlathi Secondary School (cross-country) on March 15 and Milton High School (track and field) the following day. The national cross-country meet will be on Tuesday next week, while the track and field will follow the next day.
Mashonaland East last year amassed 26 gold, 15 silver and 25 bronze medals to emerge winners, wresting the title from the 2010 victors Midlands. Matabeleland South came second with 18 gold, 12 silver and nine broze while Manicaland in third position with 14 gold, nine silver and 14 bronze.
