THE Zimbabwean Government has recently paid bonuses to athletes who performed well at the 2023 African Games.

In Harare, a welcome reception was held for Team Zimbabwe on Wednesday to celebrate their success.

Zimbabwe won a total of 11 medals at the games, including three gold, four silver, and four bronze. As part of the government’s policy to recognize and reward athletes who excel in international competitions, gold medalists at the games received a cash prize of US$1000 each.

Similarly, silver medalists were awarded US$800, and bronze medalists received US$600 each. The athletes expressed their gratitude and satisfaction with the government’s gesture.

“This is special and going out to represent your country and you come back to be honoured in such a way and you also get to have breakfast with the minister this means a lot for us,” said Josephine Nkomo, the Lady Chevrons vice-captain.

“As a young athlete I will keep working hard because this is good motivation and it also shows that we can make a living out of the sport, we got allowances at the Games now a bonus for the medal I am happy,” said Kudakwashe Nyamakura, a Sevens Rugby team member.

The government is happy with the continuous improvement of the team from the past two editions of the games.

“We carefully selected 10 disciplines to represent the country and out of those, five have brought in medals, if we are talking numbers, if we classify teams as one medal it means we sent in 23 athletes and have won 11 medals and this is a huge improvement from the past two Games and it shows our decision to carefully choose sport codes that we are going to support based on past performance and physiology is working and we will continue to do that as we hope to streamline out Sports,” said Minister of Sport, Recreation, Arts, and Culture, Honourable Kirsty Coventry.

Some of the athletes are now shifting their focus to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France set to start in July.
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