.SCOTT

By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

VICE-PRESIDENT Guy Scott has called for increased support to athletics since it was bringing better news to Zambia despite operating with little financial support.
The vice-president was saying this at his residence yesterday when he joined his wife Charlotte in welcoming back athletes from Morocco.
Charlotte worked closely with Zambia Amateur Athletics Association body (ZAAA) to raise money that was required for runners’ international trips.
The vice-president urged ZAAA to nurture the young and promising athletes so that Zambia continues reaping medals.
“We are getting a lot of joy from your achievements,” he said.
He said it would not be possible to compete with such advanced counties like America and Britain but that lessons can be learnt from countries like Kenya who have excelled in athletics despite being a third world.
“We know one thing and that is their (Kenya) altitude help them with endurance but we are producing champions here as well, so, let us look at what we have that can give us a dominance, something like middle distance,”  he said.
ZAAA has had blistering happy moments in the last few months whose peak was 16-year-old Sydney Siame winning a gold medal in 100m at the World Youth Olympics held in Nanjing, China last month.
Kabange Mupopo added to the African title in the women 400m race and a new national record in the same category as well as Saviour Kombe helping Africa set a new continental record in the 4X400m relay.
Charlotte hailed the athletes for the achievement and encouraged them to work even harder to achieve more and improve their lives.
She said that while the nation was expecting the athletes to do well, their performance was way above expectations and that just showed how much talent there is in Zambia and how beautiful results could be with more sponsorship.
“I love athletics, and I am very happy with what you have achieved.
This has come with just a bit of nurturing and to be honest what you have done is better than we dreamed of. It is important that we support the spread of the sport across Zambia,” she said.
ZAAA through its president Elias Mpondela thanked sponsors who made the medals possible by helping the association financially in seeing that athletes camped for 21 days in Europe ahead of the Commonwealth Games and other international competitions.
“I would like to mention Zesco, Zambia Sugar and CEC for helping us, there was Mr Robin Halland who helped us get to these sponsors and speak the language they understood, we are humbled by this,” he said.
He called on the athletes to continue working hard and produce more medals for Zambia and thanked the German Government for attaching an expert to ZAAA in the form of Ralph Muchbahani.
Sports Fans chairperson Peter Makembo praised Charlotte for helping ZAAA and dedicating time to the sport saying it was because of her help that Zambia was seeing such medals.