Latwell Nyangu
ZIMBABWE’S representatives, including Arnold “Oxman” Zikhali, were all cast into the shade as Zambians dominated the Strongman Zimbabwe competition at the University of Zimbabwe on Saturday.
Zikhali came fourth in the men’s category and was the best of the Zimbabwean contingent.
Chido Maenzanise also came out second in the female category.
She went into a showdown with Africa’s strongest woman, Cherry Muchindu, who is now the world’s seventh strongest woman.
Much was expected from Zikhali, and Jonathan ‘Mr Mat’ Muvingi, but they disappointed their fans after they failed to lift sand sacks 130 and 150 kgs.
Organiser and president of the association, Knowledge Musengi, said this was just the beginning.
“We are not worried about how we performed, we just wanted to mark the dawn of a new era.
‘Our athletes are good but they lacked technique, which we will improve as we are going to have more events.
“The Zambians have an upper hand since they have been doing this for years and we were also drawing some lessons from them.
“We will improve in our next event, which we are planning to hold around August,” he said.
Musengi added:
“As you see, we are just starting up and in Zimbabwe it has never happened.
“We want to thank our sponsors who came on board including, NetOne, TopsNash Car Rental, and Chicken MedOrange.
“We are still looking for more partnerships so that we take this competition to the world.
“We say congratulations to all the participants and many thanks to Zambians for coming here to Zimbabwe to help our upcoming athletes.
“They supported us. Zikhali did well. I want to tell people to support this initiative.”
Partson Muzondiwa who is Strongman president in Zambia and vice president of Strongman Africa Association said, they even started at a lower level in that country.
“If I can tell you how we started, you will see you are way better than us.
“You will improve with each event and this is a good beginning.
“To say you didn’t do better in your participation, it would be unfair because you competed against regular competitors who have been doing this for the past years.”