Malawi is certain splendid performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games following intensified preparations that are underway for its prospective athlete who are doing well at various international sporting platforms.
High hopes for Malawi comes after the Malawi Olympic committee (MOC), with financial support from the international Olympic Committee (IOC) provide scholarships to potential local athletes who are scheduled to represent Malawi at 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Chef de Mission (CDM) for Team Malawi for the Games, Mrs. Flora Mwandira highlights planning in terms of preparations and increase access to finances as the major factors that might contributed to average performance of athletes.
Mwandira said there are four sports disciplines in Malawi that would have the chance to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games namely: Archery, Boxing, Judo and Athlete. ‘
She confirmed that national associations will ensure that they enter their athletes into qualifying competitions at local, continental and global levels.
MOC President Kanjala
Mwandira calls:
Following the performance of Malawian athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, it was realized that failure to scoop medals and good world rankings at international competitions was due to condensed preparations and lack of resources.
She said when athletes are at home, they are not properly monitored in terms of how they train to sustain their fitness in readiness for international games, let alone limited resources that inadequate them to engage with international athletes at different podiums.
This situation led MOC to develop a four year Strategic Plan (2017-2020) to guide the body in achieving enhanced athlete performance both at local and international levels.
Kytrina Phiri, MOC Public Relations Officer says that
one of our strategic areas is to achieve podium performance hence MOC approached the international Olympic committee (IOC) under the Olympic Solidarity program for support in order to enhance the performance of potential local and international levels.
One of the MOC strategic objectives is to ensure that at least one athlete qualifies with ‘A ‘ standard for competing in the 2020 Olympic Games and goes beyond the first round of the competition, and that at least two (2) athletes qualify for the commonwealth and Olympic Games and achieve the top 16 position.
No wonder we recently heard the good news that IOC has provided scholarships to athletes from Malawi to be in high performance centers abroad as they prepare for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
MOC President Oscar Kanjala said:
So far MOC has supported many other sporting disciplines in Team preparation and participations at various qualifying events. MOC has also helped in facilitation for expert coaches and trainers. This support is way beyond what the body had been offering in the past, when it concentrated on just assembling the final team for the games. We are also encouraged to note that most of these sports codes are now taking greater responsibility of managing team and athlete preparations in their respective discipline,
He added: “having received the necessary support from individual national associations and other stakeholders, we are hoping that athletes will qualify for 2020 Olympic.”
Key to preparations for 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games were the All Africa Games conducted in three phases. At every stage, winning athletes have been qualifying to the next phase until they emerge winners in the last stage. It is these athletes that have been earmarked for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
These athletes include Areneo David and Mike Abel of Archery; Stein Lifa and Gift Kawale of athletes; Joseph Phiri of Taekwondo; Harriet Boniface and Chikondi Kathewera from the Jodo Association of Malawi.
Areneo David is an outstanding young Malawian archer who is an archery Excellence Centre in Lanne, Switzerland. He has just earned another victory in the Top Archers completion in Switzerland on August 4 2019 where he came second out of 20 competitors with 617 points.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics he discharged 603 points out of a possible 720 to take the 62 position from a field of 64 archers, before he faced his initial challenge against the third-seeded Italian archer David Pasqualucci. His next competition is at the 12th African Games in Morocco and Areneo is hopeful that he would do better as these are the qualifying Games for the forthcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
“Having received the necessary support from individuals national associations and other stakeholders, we are hoping that athletes will qualify for 2020 Olympic”
Harriet Boniface who is number 6 in Africa and on position 97 on world rankings was expected to train at Magyar Judo Centre in Budapest Hungary, but failed to go due to failure to be granted double visa in South Africa. Nevertheless, her scholarship is still going on while at home as she is being exposed to more professional bouts at international levels as she appeared at the 2019 Africa Judo Championships in Cape Town, South Africa, All Africa Games in Morocco, and the world Judo Championship in Russia, Baku and Tokyo respectively this year.”
Tokyo will host over 15 000 athletes from 207 nations including Malawi who are geared to participate in what would be the most innovative, inclusive and inspiring Olympic yet.
The games are expected to kick-off on Friday, July 24 2020 with a spectacular opening ceremony and will run until Sunday, August 9. Shortly afterwards, the Para-Olympic games will begin on Tuesday, August 25 2020 and run until Sunday, September 6. There are 33 Olympic sports and 22 Paralympic sports which will be held across 43 venues around Japan, with athlete’s eager to get their hands on one or more of around 900 gold medals.