MUKWIMA CHILALA writes
@SunZambian
THE Zambia Table Tennis Association (ZTA) has started preparing for the All Africa Table Tennis Games at the Olympic Development Centre (OYDC) with participants from Malawi, Zimbabwe and host, Zambia.
Table
Tennis Association secretary Boyd Kabinda told the Sun Sport that there would
be a tournament in preparation for the All Africa Games slated for Rabat in
Morocco to be held in August.
He said that all the three teams were preparing for the tournament and that Malawi had sent a team of six players which comprised three men and three women with Zimbabwe only entering four athletes in the men category’s category.
Kabinda said the host, Zambia, had the highest number of participants with 21 players and that it would also be participating in the Botswana Open in preparation for the Africa Games.
He said depending on the availability of money, the team would also be participating in another invitational tournament in Kenya later this year.
Kabinda said the association had been soliciting for money in preparation for the tournament.
He appealed to business houses to help with some money once it came up with a budget.
Kabinda said the association already had a provisional team that had been preparing for the upcoming African Games.
“We have got a national team which has been there for three years and we are concentrating on them. This is just part of the training to gauge how they are going to fare in these three competitions,” he said.
“The boys are doing very fine, and you remember that just last year we participated at the east and Central Table Tennis Competition in Tanzania and the team did very well by coming out first.”
Kabinda said the men’s team comprised top seeded Kennedy Katumbu, Emmanuel Munga, who is second seeded, and Evans Mulopa.
The women’s team was made up of Latipha Nalavwe who was the national champion, Janet Mwelwa, and Ruth Mutailwa .
Kabinda is confident of doing well in the competition.
He said the team was geared and looking forward to the African Games.
