The ManicaPost
Ray Bande and Fungai Munyoro
FORMER Mutare Polytechnic lecturer, Tendai Tagara — who has been the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (NAAZ) president since 2012 — earned global recognition with his recent appointment to the World Athletics Development Commission.
Manicaland Athletics Board (MAB) believes Tagara’s appointment will immensely benefit the province.
In an interview, MAB chairperson, Joshua Matume said, “We are so excited and proud of the elevation of Tendai Tagara onto the World Athletics Development Commission.
“A dedicated and committed Tagara influenced so many people in Manicaland to fall in love with athletics. He groomed many athletes, coaches, technical and athletics administrators in the province and the country at large. His appointment onto the Commission means a lot for Manicaland.”
Tagara was born and bred in Manicaland.
He started coaching at Makoni Athletics Club in 1995.
He attended his first international athletics course in 1993 before he was appointed national event coach for jumps in 1995.
In 1996, he went to Kenya for the sprints and hurdles coaching course and briefly held the post of vice-chairperson for MAB in 1997. In the same year, he was elected MAB chairperson.
In 1998, Tagara was appointed national assistant coaches’ director and in 2001, he was appointed as the national coaches and talent identification director.
In the year 2012, Tagara was elected president of the NAAZ.
This is the same year when Marymount Teachers’ College lecturer, Matume, took over as the chairperson of MAB.
“We will directly benefit since we happen to be the province of his origin. We will always be kept abreast with the latest trends of athletics development right from grassroots, which is key to sports growth and improvement.
“All our programmes, right from ward, district and provincial levels, will have a facelift as we will be working in tandem with the international guidelines.
“The global development programmes will be spearheaded at national level by one of our own son, Briad Nhubu, who is currently the director of youth, a department that deals with grassroots athletics development and nurturing of athletes from NAPH, NASH and the clubs.
“Thus as a province, we stand great chances of improving our performance. So on behalf of the MAB, I say congratulations to Tendai Tagara on his appointment onto the World Athletics Development Commission,” said Matume.
In a separate interview, Tagara talked about the effects of Covid-19 on athletics.
“As NAAZ, we have been affected greatly. Our athletes have lost sources of income because there was a complete suspension of the calendar. Some events are lost for the whole year.
“Some are pushed to end of the year, that is if things change for the better. The more our athletes are active, the more they are able to raise income. We hope all will work out for our athletes when things go back to normal as our athletes survive on athletics,” he said.
A total of 14 athletes have been shortlisted for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
These include Ngoni Makusha, Dickson Kamungerume, Dickson Kapandura, Tinotenda Tsumba, Tinotenda Vambe, Rutendo Nyahora, Munyaradzi Mari, Isaac Mpofu, Tinotenda Mapaya and Tinotenda Matiyenga.
These athletes are still training indoors with the support of their personal coaches.
The Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be held this July, but have been moved to July next year.
The World Junior Under-20 Championships, which was supposed to be hosted by Kenya, were also suspended to 2021; while the Poland World Athletics Half-Marathon was rescheduled from March to October.
Tagara said this gives the athletes enough time to prepare.
“I think it is also a blessing in disguise. We have enough time to prepare for the Olympics. We have shortlisted 14 athletes and we hope we will have many of them qualifying for this prestigious event. They have been training and working very hard under the watchful eyes of their personal coaches.
“ln light of how Covid-19 has disrupted all our events, we just pray and hope that things will get back to normal soon. The world half-marathon in Poland was postponed to October. We hope by that time all will be fine,” he said.
Tagara believes Zimbabwe has a lot of athletic talent. However, he said the lack of resources is hindering the development of athletes in the country.
“We have plenty of talent in Zimbabwe, and that is why we have been dominating at youth and junior championships in the region and continent. However, we lack resources for sustainability after junior level,” he said.
Over the years, Zimbabwe has produced a lot of athletes who have made it at international level.
These include Samukheliso Moyo, Cuthbert Nyasango, Ngoni Makusha, Kenny Harden, Brian Dzingirai and upcoming star, Rutendo Nyahoka.
