CONGRATULATIONS to judoka Stephen Mung’andu for winning Zambia’s first gold medal at the ongoing 2023 All-African Games in Ghana and also for becoming the first athlete in the sport to reach a final and emerge victorious.
Indeed that is history worth celebrating and it was clearly illustrated by former Zambia Judo Association president Shapa Wakunguma, a great athlete in his time, who also understands what it means to win gold at such an event.
Let me also congratulate Simon Zulu for his bronze medal win, boxer Margaret Tembo for reaching the medal bracket and not forgetting our swimming sensation Mia Phiri who has bagged two medals so far at the Games.
This is no mean achievement at such an important event where athletes are also fighting for qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
But as much as we are celebrating the five medals won so far against our friends toasting over 100 medals won, I feel we need to invest more in sports as a country than leaving it entirely to the government.
To start with, a bigger contingent at the Games being held under the theme “Experience the African Dream” would have greatly helped us challenge for more medals in other disciplines and various categories.
A number of sports codes were dropped due to financial constraints by the government and this saw only 65 athletes selected to compete in boxing, swimming, badminton, chess, karate, judo, table tennis, cycling and volleyball.
From the list, table tennis and badminton exited without medals with the chess crew set to follow suit unless otherwise.
However, expectations are high from the boxers and a runner Muzala Samukonga to add more medals on Zambia’s tally.
As stated earlier, I feel there is need for the corporate world to come on board and help the government which has a lot of competing needs in running the economy.
The corporate world can help these associations ahead of such important tournaments so that the country can have capable representation.
It is sad that we can only have representation in nine sports codes from the 23 available and we expect more from such a delegation?
Companies can start adopting certain sports disciplines and sponsor the athletes to enable them compete in such competitions rather than just waiting for them to struggle through with the help of the government and only just come to make pledges when victory is attained.
The corporate world should learn to invest from the scratch rather than waiting to jump on the victory bandwagon and be seen to be champions of sponsoring the sport when it is all about lip service and gaining mileage for their own good and nothing to do with sports.
Let these companies not wait for Muzala, because everyone knows he will win a medal, to emerge winner, then start promising the world to him instead of helping him and other athletes during training when it matters most because that is where the real job is done in preparing for events.
Athletics is one area just like boxing and judo that always delivers at the African, Commonwealth and Olympic Games and adoption of one of these teams could be the way to go and help lift the burden on the government.
The same would be done for the Copper Queens who have shown so much potential but could do so much more if they had that incentive in form of sponsorship not only from FAZ and government but from the corporate world.
For now we continue following the Games keenly and hope for a few more medals to come through with hope that one day we can seriously invest in sports and reach the levels of Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa among a few whose investment in sports is bearing the fruits at the Games.
Wishing you all a wonderful sporting weekend and all the best to our athletes in Ghana, and let us interact via email eliaschipepo@gmail.com