Reported by Fostina Mkandawire
Vice Secretary General for the Malawi Olympics Committee, Dennis Kumwenda, has underscored the need to build the capacity of coaches in the country for Malawi to be qualifying for Olympics and Common Wealth games.
Kumwenda made the call on Monday, when closing a 5-day Rowing Level One Technical Coaching Course, for Coaches, at Livingstonia Beach, in Salima district.
He said the country is not doing well in most competitions, especially at the international stages, citing a lack of capacity and technical knowledge of sporting disciplines as the main challenge for many coaches.
“We want to have qualified coaches that can groom athletes in the country, which can give us an upper hand in qualifying more athletes in different competitions, such as Commonwealth and Olympic games,” he said.
Kumwenda called for more support in training coaches so that the country can do well in competitions and not be eliminated early, which has been the trend in recent years.
“Knowledge and skills are the only assets that advance sporting disciplines, we want our athletes to bring medals in the country, we want sporting associations to have experts who will be inculcating knowledge in the athletes, from what they have learnt,” he said.International Rowing Expert, Sizwe Ndlovu who is based in South Africa, said the country has the potential to make it at international competitions, as long as the coaches and the players maintain a momentum that enables them to constantly practice and compete at national stage.
“Our support to rowing will be ongoing, we will continue engaging the coaches and helping them build a network internationally. We will also continue observing how they execute what they learnt,” he said.
Ndlovu said being a master of a sporting discipline takes effort and constantly relearning what one seems to already know, most importantly practicing frequently.
On her part, Rowing Coach from Mangochi, Hope Kalua, expressed satisfaction with the training, citing that content was professionally delivered to them in a way that would assist them to develop the sport in the country.
“We lacked capacity, we only had a basic knowledge of the rowing game, however, this training has advanced our knowledge because we have learnt some new technicalities about the doe’s and don’ts of rowing, we are optimistic that we will be doing better in competitions,” she said.
The training course which was being facilitated by international experts, attracted 20 participants drawn from Salima and Mangochi districts.