BULAWAYO is set to host the national taekwondo championships at Barberton Gym on Saturday that will see the selection of a team to represent Zimbabwe at the All-Africa Games in Congo-Brazzaville from September 4 to 19.
GRACE CHIRANGANDE SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
Matabeleland taekwondo chief instructor Ricky Tembo said they are waiting for confirmation from the four provinces for the competition.
“All is now in place for the tournament and for now we were just waiting for confirmation from Mashonaland West, the Midlands, Harare and Mashonaland East provinces on who will be taking part. For Matabeleland we have already selected a team of 20 men who took part in the provincial championships that we held last week while the women did not take part although they come for training,” Tembo said.
He said he was optimistic that the selected team would do well on Saturday.
“I’m very confident that the individuals that we selected to represent us will do well as we selected the best team although most of them will be competing for the first time at national level. If they keep on practicing well they would win. We largely depend on self-sponsoring where participating individuals have to fork out money from their pockets and this has not been easy,” he said.
Tembo said the sport is not very common and has been facing a number of challenges and they had been trying hard to introduce it in schools, but shortage of expert instructors has seen them hit a snag.
“We have faced a lot of challenges as the sport is not known to people. Many people do not understand the sport. We have been battling to introduce it in schools due to lack of qualified instructors,” Tembo said.
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