|
|
|
|
| Sports |
| AAM to hold national championships |
|
by
Oris Chimenya, 29 March 2004
-
16:59:08
|
The Athletics Association of Malawi (AAM) says it will on April 11, 2004 hold national junior championships in preparation for Malawi athletics team’s participation in this year’s two major international athletics tournaments.
The tournaments are the Zone VI games slated for April 24- May 2, 2004 in Maputo Mozambique and the Africa Athletics Confederation for Southern Region slated for end May in Botswana.
AAM general secretary Haxson Chapasa said in an interview on Monday that the decision to hold the refresher races came as resolution after an AAM meeting last week.
“We had a meeting which was attended by all regional chairmen from all the six divisions. So we resolved that for us to have good athletes, we should hold the national competitions on that date, two days after the closure of primary schools.
“After that the selected students will come under the funding of Massa [Malawi Schools Sports Association] to participate in the national competition after their divisional competitions,” said Chapasa.
He said formerly, national team athletes were just being selected without holding any national competition, which later brought under-performance on the entire country as a whole.
According to Chapasa, Massa has budgeted for 50 athletes at the national championship, but AAM has pledged to take care of any athletes who perform well at their divisional championships.
The AAM is expected to send 9 athletes to the Maputo event, but for the Botswana event, it has not yet received the invitation, which is expected to go via the Malawi National Council of Sports (MNCS).
At the moment, AAM has urged all the divisions hold their regional tournaments and come up with two athletes per event (one male one female) in readiness for the national one which is scheduled to take place at Chilunga stadium in Zomba.
“It does not matter whether one division dominates, but what we want is to select the best athletes for the two big international competitions,” he said.
The national junior races will include 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1500m for both boys and girls; 3000m for girls only; 5000m for both boys and girls; and 1000 for boys only. There will also be relay race, discus, short put and javelin.
Malawi is also expected to participate in the World Junior Athletics championship in Italy in July this year.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
