The ManicaPost
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
PROVINCIAL athletics administration body — Manicaland Athletics Board (MAB) — is confident of retaining all the long distance races held in the province last year.
The ability to retain the competitions in itself a show of confidence on the part of sponsors in the management of the sport by the regional athletics administration body.
MAB chairman, Joshua “Zesa” Matume confirmed that they will host this year’s editions of Vumba Half Marathon, Tanganda 42km Marathon, Nyaradzo Half Marathon, Netone-Albun Marathon as well as Rusape -Nyanga Ultra Marathon.
“We have no doubt that we will be able to retain all the long distance competitions that we had last year. This is an achievement for us because sponsorship is hard to come by these days.
“We are in process have preparation meetings with sponsors for road races that we had from last year. This will help give us a picture on how best we can improve in areas that we may not have done so well last year,” said Matume.
In its plan of action for the 2024 season, MAB has set sights on augmenting capacity building where coaches and technical officials will be receiving tutorials in their line of duty.
“We will ensure that we have robust capacity building of coaches by having coaching courses. We wish to provide all school teachers with basic coaching skills requisite for grassroots development.
“We are also going to ensure that we capacitate technical officials by empowering them with the current rules of officiating. This is all aimed at improving the standards of the sport in the province,” said Matume.
The MAB boss said they hope to spread the competition this year to outlying districts of Manicaland.
“It is our aim that we should have at least five track and field championships events in the province. These should include at least two in Mutare, one in Buhera, one in Mutasa and another one in Makoni. However, we are not really limiting ourselves to those ones only, but that should remain the minimum,” he said.
Apart from the local competitions for senior athletes, MAB is also preparing officials and coaches for both NAPH and NASH for national competitions as well as preparing junior athletes for qualification for World Championships in Lima.
