ROBINSON KUNDA,
MULWANDA LUPIYA
Lusaka
ZAMBIA Athletics (ZA) president Bernard Bwalya is happy with the performance of runners at the just-ended Confederation of African Athletics Senior Championship despite finishing emptyhanded.
And 400 metres runner Muzala Samukonga is this weekend scheduled to compete in Diamond League in China.
On Sunday night, medal hopeful Niddy Mangilishi tumbled in the women’s 200 metres final.
With other athletes struggling in Accra, Ghana, Mingilishi managed to find her way into the final, raising hopes of winning Zambia’s only medal.
However, Mingilishi had a disappointing performance finishing in a distant seventh position with a time of 24:33 seconds.
Major Bwalya is happy that the athletes represented the country well.
“First of all, I am very grateful to the athletes, the technical bench… They put in their best. Some athletes managed to reach finals and semi-finals. We are grateful to ZNS [Zambia National Service], Kansanshi Mining Plc, OYDC [Olympic Youth Development Centre] and, of course, Government – through the Ministry of Youth Sport and Arts – who came on board to sponsor the athletes,” he said.
Bwalya said most of the runners had stayed for a long time without competing while some were participating on the big stage for the first time.
“Going forward, we want athletes to be qualifying for these events, not a situation where you go there and start negotiating for a place. My appeal to the athletes is that they should avoid politics, leave politics to us, yours is to compete,” he said.
Bwalya appealed to officials to avoid discouraging athletes by commenting negatively on their performance.
ZA sent 22 athletes, who participated in various categories.
Meanwhile, Samukonga will come up against the best 400 metres runners in the world.
The race comes seven days after Samukonga finished second at Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Tokyo, Japan.
He clocked 44.83 seconds.
The race in China is dubbed Diamond League Xiamen, where Samukonga will face Botswana duo of Collen Kebinatshipi and Bayapo Ndori, who are ranked second and sixth, respectively, in the world.
Others are world number four Zakithi Nene, of South Africa, Vernon Norward and Chris Bailey – both of United States of America (USA).
The rest are Hungarian Attila Molnar, Kai Liu, of China, and Christopher Morales, of Canada.
Samukonga is ranked eighth globally.
Last year, Samukonga competed in three Diamond League races and finished fourth in Zurich with a time of 44.49 seconds while in Belgium and USA he came out fifth in both races after clocking 44:49 and 44:91 seconds, respectively… https://enews.daily-mail.co.zm/welcome/home
