ZAMBIA’S performance at the ongoing 11th edition of the All Africa Games in Congo Brazzaville and the just-ended 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa, calls for serious introspection from all stakeholders.
It is universally held that becoming a master in any sport requires extensive involvement of intellectual and psychological efforts and perfecting repetitive motions.
Despite Zambia having a rich reservoir of sporting talent, the country has continued scoring poorly on the international stage and the Commonwealth Youth Games that saw only a bronze medals minted by boxer Emmanuel Ngoma to cite one example.
With the massive talent in the country, what is really lacking in our athletes for them to mint worthy medals at the world stage?
A number of factors such as lack of motivation, inadequate preparations and the lack of a winning mentality in athletes could be attributed to this unfortunate trend.
On this platform, we have highlighted a number of attributes that make a champion; however, looking at athletes in action, one would easily tell that there is a serious lack of technique in our sports fraternity.
The global trend is that there is always a technique for every sports discipline. Technique is considered of paramount importance in performance and most athletes, who have succeeded, have always showcased great technical abilities in their performances.
According to the Oxford dictionary, Technique is the manner and ability with which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or the like employs the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavour.
From this definition, one can safely say technique is a method of performance, way of accomplishing, or the ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result.
Long time ago, running, perhaps the most essential human movement of all, required no technical training and sprinters as well as long distance runners could just engage in a freestyle kind of running without applying any techniques.
But luckily the trends have changed in recent years. Several running techniques have been introduced one after the other starting with the Pose Method of Running in 1997 courtesy of a world-renowned sports Russian scientist Dr Nicholas Romanov.
Today, the likes of Justin Gatlin, Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Frazier Pryce and other great runners have valued the importance of techniques in their performances.
“Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” was the mantra of boxing’s self-proclaimed great, the legendary Mohammed Ali born Cassius Clay, who bounced, shuffled, jumped, cut, and ran his way into the boxing hall-of-fame with his graceful footwork technique.
How was his footwork technique different from everyone else’s? And more importantly, how does changing the way you look at footwork change your overall fighting technique?
If this legendary boxer attained considerable success owing to his most treasured technique, our boxers can also employ different techniques to shoot up to the summit.
One boxer who also invested in footwork was the late Charm ‘Shuffle’ Chiteule who was a formidable pugilist who rose high in his career with superb shuffling of his legs that earned him the name ‘Shuffle.’
Coming to swimming, every swimmer has the potential to swim faster and achieve the best. In short, swimming is about brain not strength, and it is based on technique, not triceps that matters when one is training or in an actual competition.
For many coaches, swimming faster is the result of gradually increasing the length and intensity of swimming workouts so that the general fitness level increases.
While conditioning has its place, this is not all there is about swimming faster, because swimming is a very technical sport. There are a few gifted swimmers that instinctively learn how to move efficiently in water. Given enough time and practice, they would always improve.
Once our coaches begin to embrace techniques in training and execution, our swimmers will rise to the top and dismal performances at the All Africa Games and the Commonwealth Youth Games will be a thing of the past.
In Judo, the techniques enable a weak and small man to overcome a large and strong man because they are based on scientific principles such as leverage and balance.
The first thing a judoka learns is never to oppose strength to strength. If one attempts to do that, the stronger man will inevitably win. Before executing a throw, a Judoka always leans to break opponent’s balance. Such are some of the techniques that have earned judokas accolades.
Equally in handball, players utilise various throwing techniques that enable them to achieve the best of performances.
The importance of the technical aspects of various sport disciplines cannot be overlooked if Zambia is to be among the best performing nations on the continent and the world at large.
Therefore, as is the case with the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) that conducts coaching courses in a bid to improve the technical aspect of the game, other sports associations must follow suit and ensure the techniques learnt are instilled in athletes.
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