By Onny Gangata
ERRYMAPPLE Junior School from Zvishavane are the inaugural winners of the Zimbabwe Elite Schools Sports Association (ZELSSA) athletics competitions held in Gweru this Friday.
They delivered an outstanding display in both track and field events to emerge victorious ahead of three other schools.
Paradise International School from Kwekwe came second while hosts Parkview junior school and Junior primary school of Masvingo came third and fourth respectively.
EJS deputy principal Cosmore Madhawu was delighted at winning the competition.
“I didn’t expect to get this huge victory, it is a great thing for us as a school. It is a culmination of hardwork during our preparation,” he said.
“The key is to encourage the kids to keep pushing, champions are not those who never fail, but those who never quit.”
The Zvishavane based school was particularly impressive in sprint events, the 100m races as well as in the 4x100m and 4x200m relays.
The competitions saw schools providing athletes from as young as under 9s up to the Under 14s.
Parkview Junior School sports director Chido Mawela, who was part of the organising team was pleased at the level of competition and hopes that the success of this year’s event will build a strong foundation for the future.
“This was a exciting event and we noticed that the children are very talented, we hope next year the level of competition will be even better.We hope that parents will take sport seriously because it is important just like academics,” Mawela said.
Former National Athletics Association of Zimbabwe (NAAZ) president Joseph Mungwari who was the guest of honor hailed the level of competition and emphasized on the significance of grounding the young athletes on the basics of the sport.
“This has been a very good competition in terms of organization but they say catch them young and reach them to find champions among themselves. Now the technical aspects is very important, those kids must not be put under pressure but must be trained on the technical aspects such as starts, that is were the teachers come in, there is need to train the teachers in coaching,” he said.
