SPORTS NEWS

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It has an enrolment of 60 multi-racial players drawn from the city’s high schools. The spokesperson for the sponsors of the football academy, Silence Dhoda, said the institution, by uniting races through soccer is setting in motion the wheels of Zimbabwe’s qualification for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The academy hopes to attract back into the country former Warriors Coach, Ian Porterfield who will supervise a ten-man team of local instructors.
The all Zimbabwe soccer academy runs a sponsorship programme for rural schools, with the first round of a rural schools cup set to be launched in Chivhu next week.

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THE Federation of International Basketball Association (FIBA) today (June 6) is holding a coaching clinic for 15 local coaches at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Sports Club in the capital which ends on Sunday.
The Level Two coaching clinic is being attended by 15 coaches who last year participated in the Level One and were awarded a FIBA young coaching diploma.
FIBA Instructor foir Africa region Dele Akpata is a Nigerian lecturer based in Botswana arrived in the country yesterday for the coaching clinic.
Akpata, says the international board aims to help Africa develop basketball at grassroots level. The programme will assist the 15 local coaches in training players from the ages of six to 19.
“I am a FIBA African instructor responsible for training and am here to conduct a level two clinic for teachers and junior coaches . I was here around the same time last year to conduct a similar clinic and the graduands are here again today for the higher level coaching diploma. The course is a ten days long and will engage both practical and theory lessons in coaching skills,” says Akpata.
Kingdom Cavaliers and national team coach, Ronald Garura, whose team lifted the national championships this year and Basketball Union of Zimbabwe administrator, Simeon Lawson, are some of the participants attending the coaching clinic.
The coaching clinic will not help individual coaches but will also go a long way in improving the country’s game at local and international level.
The clinic will assist talented young coaches to enhance their coaching skills and Zimbabwe to develop its young talent if the country is to become a basketball powerhouse in the region.
The Basketball Union of Zimbabwe administrator, says it is quite a challenge to impart young players with basketball skills, but the clinic being run by FIBA will help the union face the challenge and bring Zimbabwe basketball to higher levels.
“The level of basketball in this Southern African region is a bit lower than in the North and West of Africa but I am extremely impressed with the structures that the Basketball Union of Zimbabwe has put in place and the emphasis they are putting on youth development.
“I am happy with the strides the union is making in developing the game and efforts are being made to spread the game of basketball to all corners of the country and their involvement with the youths aged between six and nineteen,” says Akpata.
Meanwhile, the national women’s basketball team is now in camp preparing ahead of the All-Africa Games to be held in Algeria, later this month. The 17-member squad had its first camp in April, but have intensified their preparations for the continental games ahead of their departure on Saturday.
The squad, which is dominated by schoolgirls, is a selection of the best players from the country’s competitive basketball leagues, most of them having played together at the Zone Six qualifiers hosted by the country in February.
The national basketball team is the only team-sport which qualified for the ninth edition of the continental showpiece.