IT was hugely embarrassing that after their putrid performance at the just-ended African Games, some Zimbabwean athletes that failed to win any medal in contact sport were arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, after a fight broke out as the team was heading home. After being beaten in karate, judo and taekwondo, the athletes chose to fight in Kenya resulting in them missing their flight and extra money being pumped to fly them home.
I wonder why these athletes were not punished by the Sports and Recreation Commission for embarrassing the country. They behaved like the losers that they are. It’s such indiscipline that must be rooted out if our sport is to progress.
They should have been fighting for medals in their respective sport disciplines at the Games and not brawling at the Kenyan airport.
With such athletes, it is no wonder that we won just nine medals.
It was just swimming sensation Kirsty Coventry who bagged three gold medals while the rest managed six bronze medals.
Coventry’s three gold medals ensured that Zimbabwe finished 12th out of 43 nations that took part. In total, Zimbabwe managed to win nine medals, three gold and six bronze, which came from swimming, sport for people living with disability and tennis.
Zimbabwe sent 63 athletes who took part in athletics, beach volleyball, cycling, football, gymnastics, judo, karate, swimming, taekwondo, tennis and sport for people living with disability.
It’s either sport has deteriorated on the continent or Zimbabwe just sent useless athletes because it’s unacceptable to send non-medal hopefuls to tournaments.
Nobody was expecting a medals’ surge, but winning just six bronze medals is a sign of regression.
Of course there are some countries that finished with no medal, but those are other countries. Zimbabweans love their sport but something is just not right when an entire nation of more than 12 million depend on just one athlete to deliver success.
What it means is that if Coventry had not participated in the Games, Zimbabwe would have been ranked way below the 12th position they claimed.
The problem is that we have depended on Coventry for far too long and even as age began catching up with her, no contingencies were made for her eventual retirement. She has been consistently winning medals at the African Games and registered Zimbabwe’s second Olympic Games’ gold medal in Greece in 2004.
While we hailed her achievements, public and schools’ swimming pools were being neglected. It seems there was no desire to produce other swimming sensations. We were satisfied with what Coventry was doing.
Now that she has swum her last African Games gala, what next for Zimbabwe? Coventry has done her part for Zimbabwean swimming and continued to hoist the country’s flag high when it could have been easier for her to change her nationality.
If we are failing in the African Games, how then do we expect to compete against the world’s best at the Olympics?
For Zimbabwe to succeed in sport, a clear pathway needs to be carved. Sport is no longer for fun, but has become serious.
It’s high time we discarded this philosophy that “participation is more important than winning”. If you don’t plan on winning, why participate in the first place? If we aim low as we are doing, we will continue to hit the ground instead of the target.
Participating for the sake of participating won’t take us anywhere. We need a massive programme that scouts the country’s schools for promising young athletes, who are then groomed if we are to boost national pride in international events.