All is set for the Chinese Ambassador Cup ,a Zimbabwe and China table tennis friendly match which is set to take place on the 17 – 18 of September at Belvedere Technical Teachers College in Harare.
By Owami Sithole.
The tournament is hosted by the Embassy of People‘s Republic of China and co-organized by The Zimbabwe, Chinese Table Tennis Union (ZCTTU) together with Zimbabwe Table Tennis Union (ZTTU).
Speaking during a press conference at a local restaurant Deputy Chinese Ambassador Zhao Baogang said they are committed to continue strengthening bilateral friendship and promoting cultural exchange with Zimbabwe through sport and cultural actives.
“This match is meant to strengthen the bilateral friendship and promoting bilateral sports exchange between China and Zimbabwe, Local companies are to sponsor and both the Chinese communities in Zimbabwe,” he said.
He went on to say the traditional friendship between China and Zimbabwe goes back to the days of liberation struggle as well as the adoption of Look East Policy by President of Republic of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe which injects new momentum to the development of friendship and cooperation.
Zimbabwe Table Tennis Union president, Mr John Muringani also applauded the gesture saying it will help boost the sport.
“Though as a nation we face various challenges in terms of finance, resources we are doing very well in terms of development of table tennis,
“We have managed to expose our players in different competitions like the All Africa games we hosted in 1995, 2007 in Algeria, 2011 we took our team to Maputo and in our team qualified for 2012 world championships in Germany , this all gave our players a chance of playing in high level of competition ,” said Muringani
“This relationship brings light, making tennis one of the most developing sport in the country , our vision is to see our team qualifying for Olympics 2020 we have a team of youngster that we train after every forty night and we created a center for these youngster for experience ,” he said .
