The Olympic Youth Development Centre – OYDC has disclosed that about $135 million ($15 million per province) is needed to build Olympic centers in each of the remaining nine provinces of Zambia.
Some stakeholders in the sports industry have lamented that the current scenario where only one Olympic center in Lusaka is available is robbing the country of the opportunity to source talent from all ten provinces of Zambia.
Zambia has struggled to be a powerhouse in sports in Africa and continues to produce fewer Olympic medals due to the limited or lack of support through funding, which results in poor facilities to meet the needs of various sports disciplines.
In an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times –ZBT, the OYDC Chief Executive Officer Frederick Chitambala said building another Olympic center that is of the same caliber as the OYDC in Lusaka, would cost over 15 million dollars, but noted that the current facility has to be well maintained first before other centers can be built.
Chitangala said the country has to be able to maintain the facilities already existing before the number can be increased. He said if the current facilities cannot be maintained, it will be difficult to maintain the new ones. “We need to have the capacity to maintain what we already have before we can say now we are good enough to have more facilities. For me I would not call for the establishment of 9 other facilities in the other 9 provinces similar to OYDC, when we are failing to maintain OYDC” said Chintangala.
He noted the OYDC was initially an Olympic Training Centre, which means it could only contain some sports that are Olympic sports. He noted that there are 56 different sports codes in Zambia which are registered by the National Sports Council of Zambia.
He said not all are Olympic Sports, noting that the Olympic Sports are less than 30. “Technically any Olympic Training Centre should have sports codes which should take care of all the Olympic sports in Zambia,” said Chitangala.
He said that the Centre is not a government institution by law, but noted that government is a huge stakeholder, and only receives some grants which help to pay for bills and some maintenance works.
The OYDC CEO further stated that the facility was built in 2010, and said most sports floors are supposed to be replaced after five years, which has not happened.
He said there is a difference between maintenance and resurfacing. He said maintenance works happen every day, but noted that expired running tracks cannot be replaced with just normal maintenance works, but that there is a need to have a whole floor re-surfaced.
He said there is a need to ensure that OYDC is well maintained with all sports facilities resurfaced.