A ZIMBABWE delegation to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, has made the news for being bloated compared to the size of the team sent there.
It seems we produce large delegations than teams sent to events, which needs a relook if we are to get back to the levels of winning medals.
Over the years, Zimbabwe has won a number of gold medals from the Olympics.
It was an important night in the 1980 games that Zimbabwe won the women’s hockey gold medal.
That was the first medal of an independent Zimbabwe.
It came from an all-white hockey team. It needs no sophisticated analyses why the team was white.
The sport, just like rowing or decathlon, are elitist.
They are for the rich. Many black Zimbabweans, even if they were talented, lacked not only the equipment, but also the facilities for the sport.
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Zimbabwe has over the years, particularly 1995 All Africa Games, made some massive developments of sporting facilities as a host nation.
However, the decisions then have proven beyond doubt how the Zanu PF administration is tone deaf.
Zimbabwe developed world-class facilities like the Aquatic Complex in Chitungwiza and the Magamba Hockey Stadium in Warren Park.
These facilities were developed in areas that had the least interest in the sporting disciplines.
For instance, there is no school in Chitungwiza that had a swimming facility within its premises.
It meant, from the beginning, that the Aquatic Complex was merely going to be a white elephant.
The same applies for Magamba Hockey Stadium.
While it was a state-of-the-art facility, the schools closer to the hockey stadium did not have hockey as an extra-curricular activity.
Probably it is time we have a look at the teams we have sent to the Olympic Games over the years.
Most of the athletes have been products of their families’ private investments rather than a deliberate State process.
The 1980 golden girls came from affluent families and had received private education where sport had a privileged position.
The current Sports, Recreation, Arts and Culture minister Kirsty Coventry is a decorated Olympian in swimming.
However, we should not lose sight of the fact that is a product of her family’s sacrifices and got private education.
The only team, over the years, that had the ordinary citizens was the women’s soccer team that went to the Rio de Janeiro games.
It had girls from the suburbs and in some instances, the lucky few who had been spotted in rural areas during the scouting for talent.
It is a fact that Zimbabwe schools, especially the public schools, have no deliberate policy of playing sport right through the year and neither do they have a schools league competing right through the year.
Athletics is a first term sport and the ball games are for the second term. There is no deliberate policy to play sport right through the year. There are no school leagues for sport.
The successful sports persons we have had as a country are generally a result of having dedicated families that went out of their way to produce champions.
This can be seen in the Coventry case, Stewart Evans (diving), the Blacks (tennis), Lock brothers (tennis) and the Fultons in triathlon.
Yes, we can celebrate as a country when they win medals at the wold stages, but the reality remains they are products of family investments rather than the State. And for good measure, products of former Group A schools.
Very little has been done by the black-dominated schools that have struggled to produce good sportsmen and women.
It’s either they have the resources or facilities, and most importantly, no passion for sports among most of the administrators
There are some sports that do not need sophisticated facilities like marathon, athletics, soccer and tennis.
It remains a mystery why there are no competitive school league games across the country.
It is a no-brainer to develop sporting facilities away from the people who have an interest of sport.
It is not uncommon for the development of high performance centres for elite athletes. This has been done in other countries, for instance South Africa.
It is easy for the schools to play in clusters or districts and provincials. These leagues would give them an edge and keep them focused throughout the year.
The situation is not unique to Zimbabwe. Other countries like the United Kingdom have the same problem.
Media reports have shown that one third of their athletes at the Paris games came through from private schools.
But we have to avoid the pitfall of Aquatic Complex, Magamba Hockey Stadium.
The centres need be in areas where many of the kids, who have a passion in sport, have access to the facilities.
The Guardian, a United Kingdom (UK) publication, had this to say about Olympics.
“Of the 318 athletes in the 2024, Team GB squad schooled in the UK, 106 or 33,3% were privately educated, up nine percentage points from the 24% in the 2016 team that travelled to Rio de Janeiro, analysis by the Good Schools Guide revealed.”
It further said: “Nationally, Department of Education statistics show only 9% of secondary school children in England attend a private secondary school, underlining the disproportionate impact paid for education has on progress to the highest echelons of sporting achievement.”
In the same article, it is argued that sporting facilities are only part of the story in sports success.
“But facilities are only part of the story these schools identify talent at an early age and offer places at considerable discounts, often for free, in the hope of helping realise that sporting potential.
“The best set-ups seemlessly interweave training and competition with academic work, and pupils have at their disposal the collective experience and wisdom of seasoned coaches, not to mention onsite strength and conditioning teams nutritionists and sports psychologists.”
This may seem hard and costly, but it is possible for a State to offer a few schools that combine education and sports elite sports academies for gifted students to hone their sporting skills.
Moody Stuart, an analyst in UK, said: “Parents don’t necessarily choose private schools for a better education but rather a different education.”
Back to the Zimbabwe delegation to the 2024 Olympics, reports emerged that the country had the dubious distinction of have 67 people to support only seven athletes.
Could having a slightly small delegation helped sports in the country? The answer is an overwhelmingly yes.
Resources saved could have been used in constructing tennis courts or hiring specialist coaches to train pupils per district.
Perhaps, it is time we reflect on what we have done as a country to promote sports.
It is embarrassing that we do not have a Fifa-certified soccer stadium.
It is time that government saves us from this embarrassment by channelling resources to where they are needed most.
Zimbabwe’s Olympians after 1980 have been from private schools or those who got scholarships to attend university on the basis of their sporting ability.
Yes, we have had people like Tendai Mtawarira, popularly known as The Beast, who has become a rugby sports personality and is a beneficiary of scholarships and elite training in South Africa.
He actually went on to play for the Springboks, the South African national rugby team and won two world cups.
As we celebrate the athletes who qualified, it is important that we have to relook how we finance sports and how we can make competitive leagues for schools and make sports an all year round activity.
- Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist based in Harare. He writes here in his personal capacity.
