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| 1980 Olympic gold medalist. Picture by Priviledge Musvanhiri |
The year is 1980, the city is Moscow and it is the Olympic Games. Zimbabwe women have just made it into the finals against Austria to claim their first gold medal at the global sports gala.
“It was such an amazing feeling winning; there we were when first time hockey was ever played at the Olympics, Zimbabwe was in it and we won an Olympic gold medal,” said Chisipite School hockey coach, Trish Davies, who was the team’s left half.
They were invited to the Games just to make up numbers after some countries like West Germany, Netherlands, Australia and the United States boycotted the showcase prior to the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
The Zimbabweans, who had no international experience to talk about, surprised even themselves by snatching victories that included a sweet 2-0 against the hosts in the six-team round-robin competition.
The 15-member Zimbabwean women team that was confined to just playing competitions against apartheid South Africa saw their dream come true with the coming of Independence in 1980.
So, for a country that had never really played the game at any such high-profile event, being in the finals was a historic achievement in itself.
“When we left we didn’t even know how to play on astro-turf and there were teams that were a lot quicker than us but we still managed to win. Yes, there were countries that didn’t come but that’s their hard luck,” Davies laughs as she recalls.
“We beat Russia who were training for four years and we trained for three months; that was the biggest thing. We played Austria in the final match, if we had lost it we were going to win silver and a draw was going to give us bronze. By half time we were 3-0 up and we sort of knew this was ours. In the second half we were smiling and started playing defensive hockey; but we were not going to let them come near us.”
The team was welcomed to a joyful function by the country’s then Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe, and flowered with congratulatory messages from fellow Zimbabweans who saw their victory as an icing on the hot cake of independence.
The gold medal has been written in the country’s history books but for Davies and her teammates who include Anthea Stuarts, Sarah English, Christine Prinsloo, Patricia McKillop, the memories are still fresh in their minds.
The hockey team’s gold medal is one of Zimbabwe’s eight to date. The other seven that include one gold, two bronze and four silvers were won by the country’s swimming sensation Kirsty Coventry in Anthens, Greece and Beijing, China.
Besides coaching hockey, Davies is now into bowling. She was crowned the national Masters Tournament champion, last year.
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