The eight are Kirsty Coventry, Ngoni Makusha, Chris Felgate, Cuthbert Nyasango, Sharon Tawengwa and rowers Jamie Fraser-McKenzie as well Micheen Thorncroft and paralympic sprint champion, Elliot Mujaji who got the nod on a special dispensation after the International Paralympic Committee gave him a wild card entry.
The development was revealed by the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee Chief Executive Officer, Anna Mguni, who said the International Olympic Committee had given them up to 9 July to submit their team for the games.
Mguni said they were hoping that, by 7 July, more athletes would have managed to qualify for the games that group together the best sportsmen from all over the world.
Only athletes who meet the qualifying standards are allowed to take part at the Olympics while others can get a wildcard entry on the basis of their records.
Mguni added that they were waiting for an update from Tennis Zimbabwe on the position of Zimbabwe’s top tennis player, Takanyi Garan’anga, for whom Tennis Zimbabwe have applied to be accorded wildcard status.
Mguni said they were comfortable with a small team as long as they had the best medal prospects at the sporting festival.
She revealed that one of the biggest medal hopefuls, Makusha,was battling to recover from injury in time for the Games.
The long jumper missed out on a medal at the Beijing Games by just a centimeter, finishing fourth behind South Africa’s Khotso Mokoena.
Zimbabwe has since its admission to international sport in 1980 won eight medals at the sports extravaganza, of which seven were scooped by Coventry at the 2004 Athens Games and the 2008 showpiece in Beijing.
The other medal, a gold, was won by the Zimbabwe women’s hockey team at the 1980 Games in Moscow which were boycotted by a number of countries.
Post published in: Sport