Senior Sports Reporter 

ROWER Peter Purcell-Gilpin will get the ball rolling for Team Zimbabwe at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, when rowing competition begins tomorrow at Sea Forest Waterway. 

Five athletes — Purcell-Gilpin, swimmers Donata Katai and Peter Wetzlar, golfer Scott Vincent and sprinter Ngoni Makusha — are representing the country at the Tokyo Games. 

Purcell-Gilpin is competing in the men’s single sculls and competition gets underway with the heats tomorrow.  

The Zimbabwean rower is up against Libya’s Alhussein Ghambour, Sverri Nielsen of Denmark, Kazakhstan’s Vladislav Yakovlev and Alberto di Mauro Gennaro of Italy in Heat Three. 

There are six heats for the men’s competition. 

Interestingly 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 the hosts Italy. 

Purcell-Gilpin claimed silver at that competition when he came second behind Di Mauro Gennaro. 

As he goes into competition tomorrow, Purcell-Gilpin, will be hoping to make the top three, to proceed to the quarter-finals. The remaining crews go to Repechage. 

Purcell-Gilpin qualified Zimbabwe a boat for Tokyo 2020 when he won a silver medal 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 in June he was confirmed as the country’s representative in Japan.

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

Although Covid-19 affected his preparations, a challenge athletes have had to deal with, winning silver in Italy, when returning to competition in April was a positive and encouraging feat. 

Hopefully Purcell-Gilpin can build on that as he leads the way for Team Zimbabwe being the first member going into competition on the official opening day of the 2020 Olympics Games tomorrow. 

Swimming gets underway on July 24 with the men’s 400m individual medley event.

But for Zimbabwe first into the swimming pool will be Katai on July 25 when she competes in the women’s 100m backstroke event. 

The 17-year-old is the youngest athlete in Team Zimbabwe and making her debut at the Olympic Games is likely to inspire her as she pursues her swimming career. 

Wetzlar will be up for competition on July 27 in the men’s 100m freestyle, also hoping to give his best. 

The two swimmers are accompanied by coach Lindsy Tudor-Cole. 

Golf competition tees off on August July 29 at the Kasumigaseki Country Club with the men’s individual stroke play round one and Vincent will be out on the golf course carrying Zimbabwe’s hopes at the Games. 

The golf competition consists of a 72-hole individual stroke play for both men and women scheduled over four days. Scores are cumulative from round to round. 

The men’s competition is running until August 1 and the women’s event is scheduled for August 4 to 7. The field in both events will consist of 60 players representing their countries. 

Sprinter Makusha, who is set to compete in the men’s 100m event, will get onto the track on July 31, a day after athletics competition gets underway. 

Makusha and coach Lisimati Phakamile are expected to leave for Japan today, where they will join the rest of the team.