By Paul Vutete THE Zimbabwe 4x100m senior relay team which won the country’s first medal at the African Athletics Championships in 18 years is excited by its achievement in Mauritius.
The team, which clinched a bronze medal, comprises Ngoni Makusha, Dickson Kamungeremu, Denzel Simusialela and Tapiwa Makarawu.
Makusha is grateful for the experience they got from the competitions.
“It was a good experience for us competing against some of the best athletes in Africa and some ranked high in the world. I am grateful, it’s not easy to acquire a medal, but we still managed to pull through and push as we believed in ourselves that we could manage a victory. So it was really a good experience for us all,” he said.
“I feel good about it, I feel happy. All the guys are excited about it as well. It’s something that we always wanted to do for years. It had been 18 years since the country won a medal in the Africa Championships, so this is a positive result for us.”
The team faced challenges especially due to bad weather as well as injuries, but they still put up a good show on Friday.
“We had a few challenges here and there. We had a few niggles in-terms of injuries but nothing too serious to stop us from giving our all,” Makusha sadi. “The worst challenge we had to face was the weather as it was raining and cold, but still we managed to give the competition our all.”
Kenya won the gold medal, with South Africa taking silver in a time of 39.75s, while Zimbabwe arrived home in 39.79s.
- Follow us on Twitter@NewsDayZimbabwe