ZAMBIA Athletics (ZA) president Elias Mpondela says the country has passionate and courageous athletes who will make Zambia proud at the All-Africa Games set for Accra, Ghana.
Athletics has the highest number of entries, with 30 athletes set to represent the country at the games set to run from March 8 – 23.
Zambia will compete in 15 different sports, including athletics, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, chess, cycling, judo, karate, rugby 7s, swimming, table tennis, tennis, and weightlifting.
A total of 115 athletes will represent the country. Athletics has the highest number of entries with 30, followed by boxing and rugby with 15 athletes each.
It will be the second time in history that games will be decentralised, as three cities – Accra, Kumasi, and Cape Coast will host the event.
In an interview with Goal Diggers on Tuesday, Mpondela expressed confidence in the association’s ability to select athletes capable of winning medals at the All-Africa Games.
“Yes, we have the largest number of athletes going into the games next month in Ghana, and it’s not by favour, but our sport has diverse disciplines that constitute athletics. We have passionate athletes doing their best to ensure they mint medals for the country. We have passionate athletes that strive for excellence for their country and themselves,” Mpondela said.
“We will pick athletes that can put Zambia on the world map. The truth is that we have courageous athletes who want to do their best at the African Games and make us proud. We have the provisional list, but those athletes must be prepared and psyched. We are working on it right now”.
He said it was easy to pick athletes in athletics.
“Look, in athletics, it’s easy to pick performing athletes as they compete against time. They sort themselves on the track. They qualify, and we only pick the best. The coaches are doing their best to prepare the athletes, and we hope they deliver to the expectations,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mpondela said the lack of a timing system has continued to affect the preparation of athletes.
“We need corresponding support. We don’t have a timing system. The timing system is creating a lot of difficulty for us, and I think we all remember that we didn’t buy the timing system when we hosted the CAA games. We just hired, and even now, we have just borrowed from a neighbouring country. You cannot qualify athletes for international events by hand-timing. It also becomes an expense to send athletes to neighbouring countries hosting qualifiers due to not having an electronic timing system,” said Mpondela.
“We have also been forced to hire the six-lane running track at the UNILUS campus to ensure our athletes prepare for the games since we were forced out of the National Heroes Stadium due to cholera. At the recent All-Comers Meet, we qualified six athletes for the All-Africa Games, plus Muzala Samukonga qualified already. We have another Meet in Ndola this weekend to try and see how many more athletes we can qualify”.
