HARARE - One of Zimbabwe’s greatest sports personalities of all time, Kirsty Coventry, has kick-started her two-week tour of the country in which she hopes to inspire budding sports stars to become their own heroes.

Partnered by Econet Wireless, Croco Motors and African Sun, Coventry’s team is expected to begin their outreach programme at Marondera’s Godfrey Huggins Primary School before moving to Mutare’s Hartzell High School later in the day.

On Monday, Zimbabwe’s Sportswomen of the Year will be motivating school kids from Mutare Girls High before stopping over at Masvingo’s Morganster High School the next day.

Whilst still in Masvingo, the former Olympic champion and world record holder will be challenging school kids from Victoria High School to strive to reach their full potential.

The 29-year-old icon from Harare will then arrive in the Midlands province next Wednesday.

In the Midlands, Coventry will speak at Zvishavane’s Paraplegic Athletics Club.

Her next port of call will be Bulawayo, where the school kids of Eveline High, Mpopoma High and St Bernards’ Primary School will be eagerly awaiting to meet one of Zimbabwe’s greatest sportspersons of all time.

Coventry, who has a huge fan base on Twitter and Facebook and currently boasting of close 20 000 followers, will then travel to Matabeleland South on February 1 where she will deliver a speech at Gwanda’s St Christopher’s Primary School.

The celebrity will then travel to Bulawayo’s King George 6 later on the same day en route to Gweru’s Chaplin High School, where she will make another motivational speech at that school on February 4.

Mashonaland West will then welcome her on February 5, with Coventry set to speak at Chinhoyi High School in the morning and Kutama College later in the day.

She will wind-up her tour in yet to be confirmed schools in Bindura and Harare respectively.

“I would love to visit every part of the country and every school, but it is not practical. I pray that my message will be carried further than my voice, feet and heart can reach. I will be going to about 20 different schools centrally located for other schools to access,” Coventry posted on her Facebook page.

“The objective of this tour is to motivate and inspire our youth to remain hopeful, focused, be determined, work hard and always aspire for greatness in whatever they do. My goal for this tour is to instil enough inspiration into one person that 15 years from now, they can turn around and say they believed and because of that, they succeeded.” - Sports Writer