Story by Anashe Murombedzi
THE Zimbabwe Olympic Committee (ZOC) has set sights on the development of individual athletes for them to reach their full potential in the next Olympic cycle termed Vision 2025.
It is been two years since ZOC adopted its strategic plan, which should start bearing fruit in 2025.
As part of the target to have Team Zimbabwe collecting more medals at the Olympic level, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee (ZOC) is looking at giving more attention to individual athletes’ potential.
“We are looking at those athletes that have qualified and see the areas that we need to attend to when we have identified the athlete, we walk with that athlete to develop a pathway to make sure that they reach to their optimum potential,” said ZOC president, Thabani Gonye.
“The issues to do with upgrading sports facilities has been a key issue that needs a holistic approach as part of the strategic plan. The strong foundation elements apart from infrastructure and resources have seen more areas that need refocusing on access to quality facilities, high-quality coaching, nutrition, and medical care for the athletes.”
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe is preparing for the 13th Olympic Games set for Paris, France next year.
“At the moment, we are in the phase of our athletes qualifying so we are still hopeful that with the qualifiers coming up we may have more athletes there are still outstanding qualifiers in Judo and triathlon and with the numbers of our athletes being reduced we are hoping to get at least 10,” said Chef de Mission for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Ringisayi Mapondera.
Zimbabwe only has two athletes who have qualified for next year’s Olympics and these are rower Stephen Cox and long-distance runner Isaac Mpofu.
The Olympic Games will take place from the 26th of July to the 11th of August in Paris.
