HOCKEY Association of Zimbabwe secretary general Sarah Bennett’s profile outside the country continues to grow after she was elected Africa Hockey Federation vice-president at the continental body’s 24th ordinary congress concluded in Blantyre, Malawi last week.
Egyptian Seif Ahmed was elected president while Bennett will deputise after elections for the executive board positions were held.
FIH president Tayyab Ikram was also in attendance and engaged in many discussions with the national association representatives around engagement and development initiatives for Africa.
Bennet, a former Annual National Sports Awards (ANSA) technical official of the year, is currently the deputy head at Ariel School in Zimbabwe,and holds a degree in sports psychology.
She was a member of the Zimbabwe women’s national team from 2001–2007 after which she retired to pursue her umpiring career as an FIH international umpire and is an FIH technical official.
The country’s high profile FIH technical official, Bennett is set to take part at the second successive Olympic Games in Paris next year after officiating at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Out of the seven female technical officials set for the upcoming Summer Olympics, Bennett is the only one from Africa.
Bennett has also officiated at high profile events such as the 2018 Women's Hockey Champions Trophy held in Changzhou, China and the FIH Pro League in Belgium and in the Netherlands, in 2019.
Meanwhile the Zimbabwe Under-21 ladies hockey team lost 8 – 0 in their second match at the Junior World Cup currently underway in Chile on Friday evening.
It was a major blow for the team which began the competition with a 6 – 0 defeat to seventh ranked Korea on Wednesday.
The team plays its final group match against Argentina tomorrow.
Impressively this is the third consecutive junior World Cup appearance for the ladies' under-21 side after they featured in Santiago, Chile and Potchefstroom, South Africa in 2016 and 2022 respectively.