Ellina Mhlanga, Zimpapers Sports Hub THE women’s junior and youth teams to compete at this year’s International Handball Federation Trophy Zone VI finally got their preparations underway following their first periodic camp held over the weekend in Harare. The regional tournament is due to take place from April 28 to May 4. And Zimbabwe won the bid to host. Initially they were expected to have their first periodic camp early this month, but it was postponed. They finally met from Friday to Sunday and had their training sessions at Queen Elizabeth School. Youth team coach Ozwell Gono trimmed his side to 20 players from the 30 that were selected during the trials last year. “We were just working with the provisional squad that we selected players. Those are the players we were looking at. “We were trying to trim the number down now to 20, that will regroup I think next week. “Generally, for the weekend, we were just looking at their fitness levels, ball work, you know, a few areas. “We need to work more on their fitness because most of the girls, they are not that fit. Those are some of the areas we are going to be working with. But the camp really helped because it’s been a while. “We now know our players and the areas that we need to work on,” Gono said. Since their selection late last year, the players have been working with individual programmes and the weekend’s camp was their first as a group. “On the technical side of things, we still have a challenge. But we are working on it because the players, tactically, they are not yet there. “We just hope if we get more time in camp now, unlike just two or three days camps but if we can get a few weeks with them, they are promising. I think we can fix that area. “We have talked to some of the clubs to accommodate the junior players that we have in the provisional squads. There are a few competitions before Zone VI. “So, we asked some of the clubs to accommodate the players and give them some game time,” said Gono. Zimbabwe Handball Federation technical director Farai Gwisai said plans are in motion for the teams to regroup towards the end of this month for a few days before a two-weeks camp just before the competition. “I was happy with the turn up . . . The camp went well, in total we had 50 players (Under-18 and Under-20). “We had five players who were selected last time from Matabeleland South but they did not turn up, the Under-20s because they were at an athletics camp. “It affected us but they are going to come in the next camp. Our proposed camp is next week Wednesday to Sunday,” Gwisai said. The target for the teams going into the regional event, is to improve their ranking at the tournament. “We hope this year we are going to improve on our rankings because last competition we had a challenge that we were coming from Covid and we had no much practice session “At the moment we are happy that even NAPH and NASH are playing. The league has been running so at least our players are playing more handball.” Madagascar are the defending champions for both junior and youth competition after emerging the overall winners at the last edition in South Africa, in 2023. Zimbabwe only had the junior side competing and were placed fourth out of seven countries that participated.