Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
ROWER Peter Purcell-Gilpin made his Olympic Games debut in the early hours of this morning ahead of the official opening of the world’s biggest sporting jamboree at the Olympics Stadium in Tokyo, Japan today.

Purcell-Gilpin’s event was held at 1.50am.

The Zimbabwean rower was up against Libya’s Alhussein Ghambour, Sverri Nielsen of Denmark, Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Yakovlev and Alberto di Mauro Gennaro of Italy in Heat 3 of the rowing event.

There are six heats for the men’s competition. Purcell-Gilpin and di Mauro Gennaro met at the XXXV Memorial Paolo D’Aloja in Piediluco, Italy, in the A Final, for the Men’s Single Scull (M1x), in April.

The international regatta was hosted by the Italian Federation and it featured athletes from Belgium, France, Benini, Cote d’Ivoire,

Morocco, Namibia, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and hosts Italy.

Purcell-Gilpin claimed silver in that competition when he came second behind Di Mauro Gennaro.
He qualified for Tokyo 2020 by winning silver in the men’s single sculls at the African Olympic Qualification Regatta in 2019.

He still had to go through the national trials to select the athlete that would go to Tokyo and was confirmed as the country’s rowing representative in Japan.

In 2016, he secured Zimbabwe a boat at the Rio Games, but did not make it to the final national section.

“I am truly honoured to have been chosen as the flag bearer for Zimbabwe. I’ll do my best to bring as much of the Zimbabwean spirit to the Games as I can. As the founder of the modern Olympics said, ‘the important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong more valiant and above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity,’” wrote Purcil-Gilpin on his Facebook timeline.

The official opening ceremony will kick off at 1pm (Zimbabwean time) today.

Purcell-Gilpin and teenage swimming sensation Donata Katai, who became the first Zimbabwean black swimmer to qualify for the Olympics, will be Zimbabwe’s flag bearers in the opening ceremony that will be watched by tens of millions of viewers across the globe.

Unlike in previous Olympics, Team Zimbabwe won’t be the last team in the march out parade, but will be 83rd just behind Singapore and ahead of Switzerland as the country’s name is spelt differently in Japanese.

In addition to Purcell-Gilpin and Katai, another swimmer Peter Wetzlar, golfer Scott Vincent and sprinter Ngoni Makusha are representing Zimbabwe at the Tokyo Games.