Netball misses out on Mini Olympics
ONE of the country’s most popular sports disciplines, netball, will not feature at the Mini Olympics scheduled to take place on Saturday at Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe.
Netball Association of Malawi General Secretary, Carol Bapu, said the absence is a result of the association’s tight schedule as the country’s national netball team, the Queens, go into camp today in preparation for this year’s Fast 5 World Netball Series in Australia.
“All our attention has gone to preparing our team for the Fast 5 series which is on this monthend. That is all I can say,” Bapu said in her brief response while declining to take more questions.
Malawi Olympic Committee (Moc), organisers of the Games aimed at preparing local athletes for next year’s Commonwealth Games and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, said netball will be missed at the event.
Moc Vice Secretary General, John Kaputa, said organisers were aware of the Queens’ training schedule.
“The idea was to have regional select teams competing at the tournament. We intended to have one team from the North, two from the Centre, one from the South and one from the Eastern Region.
“This could have helped in tapping raw talent which could have helped in the further development of netball in the country. But we are going ahead with the other sports disciplines including football,” Kaputa explained.
Malawi is yet to win a medal at the Olympic or Commonwealth games, let alone attaining the qualifying standards. Analysts have attributed the failure to poor preparations.
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