By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
SPRINTER Sydney Siame says he is fit and ready to set a new personal best time at the 2014 Africa Union Sports Commission (AUSC) Region-Five Games to be held in Zimbabwe.
Siame, the 100m specialist, shocked the world by winning gold medal at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics in China in August to become the world’s fastest kid.
He said in an interview after a training session that he was eager to get to new heights at the Games to be held in Bulawayo from December 4-14.
Siame said he was close to his personal best time of 10.51seconds in the 100m and would be happy to beat his time during the games.
“I am training very hard and I am very ready for the games. I am near my personal best time and I will be very happy to get a new personal best in Zimbabwe,” said the soft-spoken Chingola runner.
Siame, who is expected to be the tournament main attraction, won the Youth Olympics gold with a time of 10.56 seconds.
National youth coach Kezzias Nyendwa said Siame and other runners going to Zimbabwe will just have to look at getting new personal best times because they were Zambia’s stars for the Brazil 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Meanwhile, Zambia Under-20 boxing coach Wisdom Mudenda promised medals but refused to name the medal colours his pugilists will come back with.
“I can promise you that the boxers are in tip top form, they are working hard. They have new targets and I can see they will win medal. If you ask me the colours, that I don’t know but the boxers look good for the job,” he said.
Boxing will have four pugilists who include light-flyweight Rabson Tembo, flyweight Timothy Chiyesu, Emmanuel Ngoma fighting in the bantamweight category, and lightweight Nkumbu Silengo completing the list.
Mudenda said that he was changing the weight categories of three of his boxers because of their natural small stature by bringing them a category lower as pushing them into a higher weight would just be a disadvantage to them.
Only Ngoma, who is the team captain, will maintain his bantamweight category while the rest would go a weight down.
“So far so good, they are doing well and look good for the games. I have been with them for three weeks and though not enough to get them to my required levels, they are fast learners and they do work really hard,” he said.