Harare — SEASONED administrator and Zimbabwe Olympic Committee president Paul Chingoka believes the key to sustainable success for Zimbabwean sport lies in the country setting up a national School of Excellence similar to the one that has produced a number of great athletes in Australia.

The former Tennis Zimbabwe president, widely regarded as one of the best sports administrators in the country, also maintains that lack of funding and poor infrastructure have hampered the development of sport in this country.

Chingoka, however, remains optimistic that Zimbabwe can capitalise on the exploits of swimming sensation Kirsty Coventry to continue to make an impact on the international sporting arena.

The 53-year-old administrator, who next month faces re-election for a place at the helm of the Olympic body, also welcomed the more active role now being played by the Sport and Recreation Commission to develop sport in the country and help build the capacities of national associations.

Question: It is one year now since you assumed office at ZOC, how have found life leading the Olympic body?

Answer: It is much more exciting in ZOC. There is no monotony because instead of dealing with one discipline I am dealing with 31 different disciplines with different challenges.

There is much high-performance unlike tennis where you are not dealing with individuals or parents on a more direct basis.

But that it is not to say I did not enjoy myself at tennis. I think I did achieve a lot and after 13 years at Tennis Zimbabwe I did not have more to offer - we had reached the World Group and had spread the sport to many underprivileged children and we had more than 70 kids on tennis scholarships.

Q: What are the highlights of your stay in ZOC?

A: Obviously it was the Athens Games and Kirsty Coventry's success brought awareness to the average Zimbabwean of what Olympic Games are all about and in some way it also brought pressure on us to do more at the next Olympics.

The potential that we have in athletics, tennis, swimming and shooting shows we can be winners. It is unfortunate that our 4X4-relay team did not go to Athens after doing so well in Congo and yet the Nigeria team they had beaten won silver at Athens.

The partnership we have with the SRC also meant that we got a lot of assistance from the Government.

Q: What about the low points?

A: I think we did not manage the 4X4-relay team properly and that team should have been at Athens. We also had inadequate preparations for Athens. We should have done more to assist people in qualifying.

Q: How would you compare the levels of administration at TZ and ZOC?

A: ZOC is a much bigger organisation that is run through the various commissions and you have a bigger base of employees and business continues to expand. The role of ZOC is developing and protecting the Olympic movement and dealing with high performance athletes, looking after athletes' interests and looking after associations through capacity building and the International Olympic Committee assists us through the solidarity fund.

At ZOC you also work with experienced people at the highest level and who have come from various associations.

In tennis you rely mostly on volunteers and very little full-time staff although to be fully professional you also need more full-time staff.

Q: Are you still involved with local tennis?

A: Tennis is still my passion and I am more of an advisor to TZ. Because of my position on the ITF board, I assist local tennis to source for equipment and coaching clinics. I represent the whole of Africa on the ITF board and that means I have to keep abreast with events at TZ and also present some of Zimbabwe's needs.

But I must say I miss organising the Davis Cup matches.

Q: What do you think has contributed to the Davis Cup team struggling to move back into the World Group?

A: We were very fortunate that Byron and Wayne came at the right time but the gap between them and the rest of our players is vast.

Tennis is also mainly a family sport where the parents play a decisive role through what they do for their children. Great Britain have everything, the facilities and the funding but they have failed to produce players and Tim Henman was produced by his parents. Germany, who have failed to produce a top player after Boris Becker, were in South Africa recently for a Davis Cup match with just three players because they failed to get a fourth player.

So is it basically not about the money. Switzerland could only send a junior team after Federer said he could not make it.

In any case proper development of tennis in this country only started in the early 1990s.

Q: Are you saying it is about giving the team time to rebuild?

A: Yes, it is a process and it will take us a while to go back into the World Group. It must be remembered that Tennis Zimbabwe has existed since 1904 and we only played in the World Group from 1998 to 2000 and that shows that we should not expect results overnight.

But we have the platform from which to build our team in players such as Pfungwa Mahefu and Dumiso Khumalo.

Q: What about suggestions that there was no development to talk about during your time and hence the tennis probe by the Sports Commission.

A: I have not seen what the probe came out with but I must say I am surprised by suggestions that we did not carry out any development because our junior players are the most sought after at ITF centres and they always get scholarships.

There has been development and TZ has 16 full-time development coaches. The first stage was quantity and I think they are now working on quality and because our main source of income was from Davis Cup, we had to maximise on the team but since 1993 we have always had a development player playing a dead rubber. It must be noted, however, that you cannot take chances in Davis Cup because it is a knock-out competition.

The results of our development might not be immediate but it will show at some stage and as we speak our juniors have been put in Group A in Mauritius.

Q: What prompted the change in administrative operations at ZOC?

A: The ZOC chief executive is a full-time secretary general with the added responsibility of overseeing the full-time staff. ZOC has grown and in order to meet our strategic plan of running more medals in Beijing we needed someone at the highest level. It is also in line with the IOC charter and if organisations like Zifa, ZRU or PSL can have a chief executive why not ZOC which is much bigger and deals with huge sums of money that need greater accountability.

Q: There are elections for the ZOC board, are you going to stand again?

A: I will definitely seek another mandate. I think I have learnt a lot in my first year and I believe I still have more to offer. It must be remembered that I only came in to fill in the gap created by Tommy's departure but I hope to get a full Olympiad, which is a four-year term.

Q: What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the next ZOC board?

A: The thirst and hunger caused by Kirsty means that the nation has high expectations for 2008 and our technical commission has already categorised athletes in preparations for Beijing.

Q: How has the fact that most of the sporting disciplines still have an amateurish approach affected the aspirations of ZOC?

A: ZOC as a national committee has encouraged development of high performance and we have assisted by organising courses because we realise the need for capacity building. Sport in Zimbabwe is still run by volunteers who have a passion and we are fund-raising to assist the marginalised associations.

Q: Who exactly should be spearheading development between ZOC and the Sports Commission?

A: I am glad that the Sports Commission takes care of development as it is the arm of Government that also has access to schools.

ZOC deals with high performance but to reach that you need development and that is where the SRC would have already come in.

Q: Is this why ZOC is not responsible for organising events like the national Youth Games?

A: Yes, but such games as the Youth Games, All-Africa Games or Zone Six games are part of preparations for the Olympic Games but we work closely with the commission and assist them in preparing and picking the teams.

Q: What is your view to suggestions that most disciplines lack competent administrators who can put up viable and sustainable programmes?

A: I wouldn't say that there are low calibre administrators but it is unfortunate that lack of funding and poor infrastructure is hampering development.

But we are working with the commission to assist the administrators who have shown enthusiasm to see the sport grow.

Q: What do you want to see unfolding in our sport in the short term?

A: Our teams must hang in there and we must continue to qualify for all the competitions.

Q: What about in the long term?

A: I think we need a School of Excellence like they have in Australia where we actually develop our talent instead of the ad-hoc approach we have.

The Government, the media and the corporate world must pull together and harness all the resources that we have to make Zimbabwe a real sporting nation that we are.

We also have a lot of infrastructure that is not being utilised but I am happy that through our media there is a lot of sport awareness in the country and we need to capitalise on that by ensuring that the community becomes responsible for infrastructure. - petros.kausiyo@zimpapers.co.zw