Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Collin Matiza
7 May 2008
Harare — Zimbabwe are taking no chances in getting their athletes fully prepared for this year's Olympic Games and would like their team to arrive in Beijing, China, well before the world's biggest sporting event explodes into life on August 8.
Thabani Gonye, the chef de mission of Team Zimbabwe 2008, said yesterday that they would like the team to be in Beijing at least a week before the start of the Games.
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games are set to run from August 8-24. "We are currently looking at the issue of when the team should fly out and arrive in Beijing for the Games. We are looking at the most convenient time and we were initially looking at sending it out on July 25. "But since the Games Village will only be opened on July 27, we are now looking at sending the team to Beijing between July 27 and August 1. "We would like our athletes to have fully acclimatised by the time of the Games' opening ceremony on August 7," Gonye said.
He said he was also likely to attend a pre-delegation registration meeting for the Beijing Games at the end of this month. "There is also going to be a pre-delegation registration meeting but it might not be necessary for me to travel to Beijing for it because it could be a tele-conference meeting which might be held, maybe in South Africa at the end of this month," Gonye said. He also revealed that the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee have already met the deadline of accrediting Zimbabwean athletes and officials for the Beijing Games.
Gonye that they managed to send, for accreditation, the names of the athletes and officials, who have been earmarked for the Beijing Games, in time before the April 15 deadline. Their accreditation cards will also double-up as their visa for entry into China. Gonye said they drew up a long-list of 18 athletes and it had a room for the athletics' men's 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams that are yet to set the qualifying times for the Beijing Games that will run from August 8-24.
"We have also given a provision for the men's marathon event because at the moment we only have one male athlete - Mike Fokorani - who has set an A Standard qualifying time for the Games. "As you know, we still have a number of male athletes who are sitting on B Standard qualifying times for the Games men's marathon event and we expect at least one more to make the grade before the June 30 deadline," Gonye said. So far, 11 athletes have already qualified to represent Zimbabwe at the Beijing Games and they will be led by local swimming icon Kirsty Coventry who took the last Olympics in Athens, Greece, in 2004 by storm when she grabbed a full set of medals - one gold, one silver and one bronze.
The other Zimbabwean athletes who have already made it into Team Zimbabwe 2008 are Coventry's fellow United States-based swimmer Heather Brand, track stars Brian Dzingai, Lewis Banda and Talkmore Nyongani, middle-distance runner Cutbert Nyasango, marathon runners Fokorani and Tabitha Tsatsa, women's tennis player Cara Black, cyclist Antipas Kwari and triathlete Chris Felgate. Gonye said they were already giving assistance to some of the Team Zimbabwe 2008 members in their preparations for the Beijing Games. "We have assisted athletes such as Kirsty Coventry, Cutbert Nyasango and Tabitha Tsatsa in their preparations for the Games by assisting in paying for their travel expenses for international competitions around the world.
"In fact, we've looked at each athlete's needs in the team in terms of his or her preparations... We were looking at their critical needs which included air fares," Gonye said. ZOC met some of Coventry's travel expenses when she flew from her base in the United States to Manchester, England, for last month's Fina World Short-course Championships.
In Manchester, Coventry asserted her claim as one of the world's heavyweight swimmers when she broke three world records on her way to winning five medals -- four gold and one bronze. ZOC also assisted the National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe in sending another Olympic Games-bound athlete Nyasango for the World Cross-country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland, at the end of March.
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