•ZAMBIA’S Boas Munyonga of Zambia (white) in action against Louis Krieber-Gagnon of Canada during the Men’s 81kg Judo Bronze medal match at SECC Precinct during day two of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games last month in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Picture by RICHARD HEATHCOTE/GETTY IMAGES EUROPE.

By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA  –
THE Zambian contingent that participated at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games returned home to a low key reception with the Sports Council of Zambia (SCZ) demanding more medals in the next outing.
Led on by bronze medallist Ben Muziyo, the athletes arrived on Thursday afternoon aboard an Emirates Flight and were welcomed by SCZ chairperson Mwamba Kalenga.
Judoka Boas Munyonga won the other bronze medal for Zambia to take the tally to two with Kalenga urging the athletes to aim at winning more medals at the next outing.
Kalenga challenged the athletes to at-least aim for 10 medals during the next Commonwealth Games to be held in Australia in 2018 saying the two medals won were not enough.
He told the 33 returning athletes and officials that it was incumbent upon the various associations to make sure that their athletes were well prepared to win at such high level games.
Kalenga, a good governance advocate, praised Muziyo and Munyonga for delivering medals but that as a country, it was important that athletes return with more medals.
“One thing that makes me happy is that you remained disciplined but next time you go out like this, we want a minimum 10 medals,” he said.
Team Zambia’s Chef-de-Mission Francis Mubanga said one weakness in the Zambian camp was that preparations started late and that it was important to start early for the next Games.
“Apart from that, we feel that associations need to cast their net wider in catching these athletes to go beyond the line of rail. We have potential but we need to work on these little pitfalls,” he said.
Meanwhile, Muziyo in an interview regretted missing out on winning a gold medal but had promised to deliver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Muziyo, a boxing middleweight, said he could have won the gold save for a few technicalities that disadvantaged him and that he has learnt a lot from the Games.
“It feels good that I am the one of the two athletes to bring a bronze but in actual fact, it is bad because I had a good chance for gold. This outing has taught me one more thing and I will implement a new training regime.
I was feeling weaker as games went on because immediately after a fight I needed to build on my weight and later lost it in training. I now know that I have to manage that from now on in time for the Olympics,” he said.
Muziyo was defeated at semi-final stage by Antony Fowler of England to settle for a bronze medal with the Englishman going on to win a gold medal at the games.
Those that came back are athletes and officials from boxing, bowling, squash and table tennis while the judokas came back earlier with the athletes having gone straight to the Africa Athletics championships in Morocco.