From SHAMAOMA MUSONDA In Bulawayo –
RUNNER Sydney Siame says he is happy with the silver and bronze won at the Africa Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region-Five Games in Zimbabwe.
Siame said this was despite the high expectations for him to dominate the Games after winning gold at the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics four months ago to earn the ‘World’s fastest kid’ tag.
The 16-year-old, who missed out on gold but picked up silver in his 100m dash speciality before adding a bronze medal in the 200m race, said his performance at the regional games showed that he was improving and not backtracking.
“In China those were Under-17 games but these are Under-20 games and I obviously expected competition to rise and that is what I got. But I still managed a silver and my time was also impressive,” he said.
The soft spoken Chingola runner won the World Youth Olympics 100m title with a time of 10.56 seconds, which was slightly below his personal best time of 10.51 seconds.
But he managed to hit 10.51 seconds here at the games which is his personal best in the heat and repeated the time in the final where he picked up the silver. In the 200m race, he timed 21.23 seconds in a photo finish end having clocked 21.16 seconds in the qualifying heat which was close to his personal best of 21.14 seconds.
“I am actually doing well with my time. I am happy that I even managed to win medals but I’ll continue working hard. I have the Africa junior coming up in March next year,” he said.
Siame training partner Brian Kasinda was not happy with his own performance saying it hurt more that despite winning a medal, he failed to improve his time in the 200m race.
Kasinda finished fourth in a tough 200m race where the first three, including Siame, could only be separated by a photo finish review but still managed to better his Personal Best (PB) time in the 100 dash to 10.52 seconds where he picked up a bronze with Zambia finishing two and three.
Sports Permanent Secretary, Agnes Musunga, who watched the races, was happy with the performance of the runners.
“You have done really well, Zambia is so proud of your competitive levels and progress. People back home are following these games closely. I can only encourage you to continue working very hard and ensure that you are better at the next international competitions you will be selected for,” she said.
She said Zambia had a good pool of athletes ready to challenge for medals and just need harnessing so that the elusive Olympic gold medal can be brought home.
Meanwhile, rising star, Joseph Sinkala, was almost in tears after he was ruled out of the rest of the games with an injured ankle. He said he had targeted to win four gold medals but just would settle for just one gold and bronze medal.
Sinkala won the gold medal in the high jump but twisted his ankle in the process which forced him to compete in the long jump with a bad ankle but still managed to win bronze.
“This really hurts because these are my last games as a junior, I’ll be graduating into senior next year and I trained very hard especially in long jump where I really wanted a gold but I guess I just have to accept this,” he said.
Sinkala was also the strong link in the Zambian team for the 4X100m as well 4X400m relay races and his injury meant that Zambia was left a man down and a possible substitute in Godfrey Chama fell sick.