ZNKF brace for Region V karate champs
ZIMBABWE National Karate Federation general secretary Tirivenyu Mutema says they have made notable progress in their preparations for the upcoming African Union Sports Council Region Five karate championships.
The regional tournament was initially scheduled for May 25 to 28 in Bulawayo but was moved to June 8 to 11, and is now set to take place in Harare.
Mutema said they have put in place a local organising committee spearheading the preparations and have secured venues for the event.
“We as the host of the tournament have assembled a local organising committee for the purposes of preparing to host the event. That committee has already put in place venues for the tournament.
“We have two, the main venue is City Sports Centre where the actual championships will take place and the second venue is Rainbow Towers hotel where we are going to house our officials and we are going to have our congress and conferences in the run up to the tournament. We have already secured those venues; they are in place.
“We are at an advanced stage of sourcing for the full financing of the tournament from the government,” said Mutema.
ZNKF are hoping to utilise the home advantage and field a big team for the tournament.
They are set to finalise the team this coming weekend from the various provinces that have been having provincial training for the past months as part of the selection process.
“I am happy to advise that as the host we have a unique opportunity to be able to field a large team. We will basically field an athlete for every available category. The preparations are at an advanced stage; we have our provincial teams training three times a week.
“We are to assemble our national squad and put (them) in camp in the coming week or so, so that we start having properly synchronised preparations.
“The final team will actually be in place this coming weekend. Our technical team has been compiling names of all those attending the obligatory provincial training.”
The national association is expecting officials from the World Karate Federation (WKF) to grace the tournament and hold a seminar for coaches from the region.
Mutema said they had to change the dates and venue to accommodate the schedule of the expected officials from the international federation.
“So initially the tournament was supposed to be held in Bulawayo at the ZITF grounds. But the World Karate Federation, which is the international governing board then indicated that it would like to second its vice president to come and attend the tournament as well as send through an expert coach to come and give a seminar on coaching to the regional coaches who are going to be attending.
“So as a result of those changes we had to move to accommodate their schedules. We had to move the tournament from the 8th of June to the 11th.
“And also to make it logistically feasible for the World Karate Federation to send their delegates, we also had to move the tournament to Harare. It’s difficult to have them connect to Bulawayo and so on, they preferred to land in Harare and stay there, so that occasioned the changes,” said Mutema.
Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia are some of the countries expected to take part in the competition.