ZIMBABWEAN athletes failed to make the qualifying times for the Africa Championships during the Gaborone International Meet held at Botswana National Stadium last week.
The athletes, who were seeking to punch their tickets for the continental championships to be held in Mauritius in June, failed to live up to their billing with top ranked Zimbabwean sprinter Ngoni Makusha finishing a distant sixth in the men's 100m final.
Makusha finished the race in 10:30sec.
Reigning World Under-20 champion, Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, won the men's 100m race in a record time of 9:96sec while South Africans, Benjamin Richardson (10:08) and Henricho Bruintjies (10:16), were second and third respectively.
Zimbabwe had no representatives in the men's and women's 200m and 400m events at the Gaborone International Meet -- a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze meeting.
Mitchell Zuze took part in the women's 100m event while the men's relay 4x100m made it into the finals as well.
Zuze went all the way into the women's 100m final in which she finished fifth in 12:12sec in a race that was won by Namibian and Olympic silver medallist Christine Mboma in 10.97sec.
Mboma and Tebogo both posted record-breaking times at the Gaborone International Meet.
World Under-20 champion Tebogo, competing on home soil at the Gaborone International Meet, became the first man from Botswana to break 10 seconds for 100m. The smooth-striding 18-year-old pulled away from an experienced international field to win comfortably in 9.96 (1.9m/s), taking 0.01 off Trayvon Bromell's world Under-20 record set back in 2014.
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Olympic 200m silver medallist Mboma also impressed in the sprints in Gaborone. The Namibian teenager became the first Under-20 athlete to break 22 seconds for 200m and 11 seconds for 100m on the same day.
After winning the 100m in a national senior record and African Under-20 record of 10.97 (1.6m/s), Mboma went on to win the 200m in a world-leading 21.87 (0.6m/s).
The Zimbabwe men's 4x100m relay team comprised of Makusha, Gerren Muwishi, Carlos Gwerendende and Joseph Israel; and they finished fourth in the final in 40:06.
South Africa won the gold medal in 38:63sec with the hosts Botswana taking silver in 39:29sec while South Africa B finished third in 39:33sec.
In the 800m men's section, promising Zimbabwean sprinter Kudzanai Chiborise could not make it to the finals despite having won his heat.
His winning time of 1:52:08sec was five seconds behind the required 1:47.
Chiborise's time could not match those of other athletes who took part in other heats and could not make the cut. The projected time limit to make it to the finals was 1:47 as Chiborise only managed 1:52.08 which saw him five seconds shy of making it into the finals.
The Gaborone International Meet, is an annual international track and field (athletics) event hosted for athletes from all over Africa.
The Gaborone International Meet provides a gateway to the African Games, World Championships and Commonwealth Games.
