By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –

GOVERNMENT has requested for assistance from Japan towards preparing Team-Zambia for the 2020 Olympic Games set for Tokyo.
Sports Minister Vincent Mwale said Zambia will be desperately looking to win her first ever gold medal at the 2020 Olympics that Japan will be hosting.
Mwale said this at his office at Government Complex in Lusaka yesterday when Japanese Ambassador to Zambia Kiyoshi Koinuma paid a courtesy.
“Japan has been a close ally to us and helped us in a lot of things including sports. Judo is one game that we can see has benefitted greatly from the Japan expertise and reaps a medal at every outing they go to,” he said.
Government together with the National Olympic Committee (NOC) last year challenged associations to make sure they win Zambia a first ever gold medal at the Olympics in 2020 by starting preparations now.
Zambia has never won a gold medal at the Olympics with Samuel Matete’s 1996 silver remaining the best ever with the only other medal reaped from the Games coming from boxer Keith ‘Spinks’ Mwila in 1984, both in the USA.
“Now since we are seeking a gold medal in the 2020 Olympics which you will be hosting, we as Zambia would love to ask for your assistance in preparing the athletes in not juts judo but many other sporting disciplines,” he said.
Ambassador Koinuma said Japan had always seen Zambia a good friend and was committed to sport naming the Japanese Ambassador’s Trophy in judo which it has been sponsoring for more than 15 years.
Koinuma committed his country’s openness to assist Zambia in various sector like the economy and sport.
“In fact, in 1964, in the Olympics held Japan, Zambia flag was raised at Olympic Games for the first time at the closing ceremony on October 24, the day Zambia got its Independence. Zambia has from that time been a close friend and our relationship is 50 year old,” he said.
At the same games, the opening ceremony on October 10 had a Northern Rhodesia flag but a brand new Zambian flag was raised at the closing ceremony.
Mwale explained that his Ministry together with the NOC had drawn up a strategic plan and was also working with the Podium Performance programme (PPP) which should see Zambia win gold medal at the 2020 Games.
“We have one document and working on the second one which is the PPP and once it is ready, we shall call on you so that you can help us in getting our athletes to a level where they will finally give us a gold medal,” he said.
The PPP is a programme that aims at monitoring and seeking special continuous training for athletes who are getting to the podium so the stay there until they win Zambia medals at big international tournaments like the Commonwealth Games and eventually the Olympics.
Mwale also asked the Ambassador, who was flanked by Third Secretary in the Public Relations Section Yuta Sekiyama, to facilitate the establishing of a Japanese kit manufacturing company in Zambia.
He said kit and various sporting equipment was one the biggest challenges facing Zambian sport and once a Japanese company was established in the country and manufacturing such equipment, sports development would be accelerated.