gh School in Harare.
She stood for the post unopposed and will be one of ZOC’s vice presidents with Brian Warren until April 2009 when the local Olympic body will hold elections for all the posts on their Executive Board.
After the verification process of the submitted nomination forms by the July 13 deadline, it turned out that Chindove was the only duly nominated candidate for the post.
Chindove and Warren will now work together under Admire Masenda who was elected as the organisation’s substantive president in April last year, replacing Paul Chingoka.
Before rising to her new position, Chindove was the chairperson of ZOC’s Marketing and Public Relations Commission.
A former radio personality, Chindove is not new in sports administration, as she has worked with Tennis Zimbabwe before, especially during the country’s flirtation with the Davis Cup World Group in the late 1990s, and at the turn of the new millennium.
Meanwhile, ZOC are convinced that they will grow from strength to strength in the coming few years with the help of their partnership with the Olympic Solidarity Movement.
ZOC has recently benefited immensely from this partnership which has of late been helping in developing local athletes through its Olympic Solidarity Programmes.
And Robert Mutsauki, the ZOC chief executive, told delegates during their general assembly on Sunday that “ZOC has continued to leverage Olympic Solidarity Programmes to sustain growth and development of sport in Zimbabwe”.
He said a number of ZOC affiliates benefited from the Olympic Solidarity Programme during the period of June 2006 and June 2007.
“The Continental Games Preparation Grant of US$80 000 benefited sportspersons from 12 Olympic sporting disciplines in preparing for (the just-ended) All-Africa Games, mainly covering the costs of training camps and competitions within the region.
“The Team Sport Support Grant in the amount of US$45 000 greatly assisted the senior women’s hockey team in their preparations for and participation in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Two swimmers Kirsty Coventry and Heather Brand and three track athletes Brian Dzingai, Lewis Banda and Talkmore Nyongani have continued to benefit from the Olympic Solidarity Scholarships with support grants being released to them every four months.
“Travel costs to the All-Africa Games for these athletes were also funded by the Olympic Solidarity through ZOC and this helped to ensure strong representation at the Games,” Mutsauki said.
The ZOC boss also told delegates during Sunday’s meeting that his body had finally managed to access the team sport support and national sports structure grants following several unsuccessful attempts and requests in the past.
Sunday’s meeting also saw ZOC treasurer, Thabani Gonye, presenting the audited accounts for 2006, which were adopted.
ZOC also retained PriceWaterhouse Coopers as their auditors and the organisation’s budget for 2007 was also ratified.
*****
DAVIS Cup team member Takanyi Garanganga is the leading light among the Zimbabwean players at the International Tennis Federation/Confederation of African Tennis Under-18 Satellite Circuit which gets underway in Botswana today (July 31).
Garanganga went to Botswana as part of the advance party and was yesterday joined by 20 other players from Zimbabwe who will be taking part in the first leg of the junior tennis tournament.
Garanganga was part of the Zimbabwe Davis Cup team which failed to qualify from the Euro-African Zone Group III play-offs at a round robin tournament in Tunisia in May this year.
He was also nominated in the ITF International Junior Touring team which went to North Africa this month.
Tennis Zimbabwe has also endorsed the participation of Admire Mushonga and Mbonisi Ndimande in the boys’ section.
Mushonga and Ndimande represented Zimbabwe at the 30th CAT Junior Championships held in Botswana in April.
Both players are based at the ITF/South Africa Tennis Centre in Pretoria, South Africa from where they travelled along with Stacey Lock.
While TZ have five players, Bulawayo and Manicaland provinces are also funding the participation of their own provincial teams at the international competition.
Cynthia Sibanda and Memory Msindo are the core of the Bulawayo team which has four other players while Manicaland sent in a larger contingent of 10 players to the event running until Saturday.
Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, South Africa and Mauritius have also sent their top juniors to the same tournament.