HARARE - Mashonaland East Province retained the NASH National Athletics Championship title for the third year running after coming out tops at this year’s meet at the National Sports Stadium last Friday.

Participants competed in 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1 500m, the4x100m and 4x400m relay events and while in the field events participants battled for honours in high jump and triple jump.

Mashonaland East finished with 68 medals – 34 Gold, 24 Silver and 10 Bronze.

The province successfully defended the trophy they won at the last championships held at Plumtree High School last year.

Manicaland Province finished in second place with 14 Gold medals, 14 Silver and 12 Bronze, while Matabeleland South, who finished in second place in 2012, were third with 13 Gold medals, 14 Silver and 14 Bronze.

Midlands got 12 Gold medals, nine Silver and 13 Bronze to end in fourth place while Harare scooped 11 Gold medals, 10 Silver and 14 Bronze to take fifth position.

Mashonaland West finished in sixth position with nine Gold medals, nine Silver and 13 Gold while Matabeleland North got seven Gold medals, seven Silver and seven Bronze to finish in seventh position.

Masvingo was in eighth place with five Gold medals, 15 Silver and five Bronze medals.

Mashonaland Central was in ninth position collecting five Gold, seven

Silver and 13 Bronze while Bulawayo finished at the bottom of the medal’s standings with two Gold, 12 Silver medals.

The competition was also used to select Under-17 athletes to represent the country at the Confederation of Southern African Schools (Cosasa) championships.

“We managed to select a strong team for Cossasa games and we are now appealing to the cooperate world to come and support us,” Nash president Johnson Madhuku told the Daily News after the event.

“A comprehensive training programme for the athletes will be implemented to ensure that Zimbabwe win many medals at the event.”

Cossasa competition caters for both primary and secondary schools represented by the Under-13 and under-17 age groups respectively. - Blessings Mashaya