8 targeted for Olympics
Malawi Olympic Committee (Moc) has earmarked eight sporting codes for 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan.
To prepare for the competition, Moc President, Oscar Kanjala, has said they will re-introduce mini-Olympic Games later this year.
The mini-Olympics will comprise individual sport codes such as athletics, boxing, judo, table tennis, swimming, taekwondo and weightlifting.
However, Kanjala said netball, despite being a team sport, will also be part of the programme.
Kanjala said the mini-games were part of their strategic plan meant to ensure that, at least, two sport disciplines qualify for the Tokyo Games, the 2018 Commonwealth Games and win a medal.
“The strategic plan, which will see us introducing mini- Olympics, will also ensure that, at least, an athlete qualifies with ‘A’ standard to compete in the 2020 Olympic Games and go beyond the first round of the competition,” he said.
He said a pool of athletes will be formed to represent Team Malawi in the international events.
“The team will be taken through a development phase from the second half of 2017 and will be split into two levels— elite and high performance, with elite being the top rank and high performance to be the feeder (standby). Elite team will be used for major international competitions. This means that all national team athletes will be drawn from this ‘central’ pool at all times. In a similar manner, coaches will also form a separate national pool,” Kanjala said.
A few years ago, Moc also introduced a Bring A Medal Campaign with cash prizes, such as K1 million, at stake for qualified athletes and medal winners, but no Malawian athlete achieved anything on the international stage.
Malawi has never produced a qualified athlete let alone a medal winner with all the sports men and women going to big competitions on solidarity.
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