Athletics icon Samuel Matete says Zambia must start preparing for the next Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games now after a poor showing at the recent Games in Glasgow.

The 2028 Summer Olympics will be hosted by Los Angeles in the United States, while India will host the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad.

Matete has rated Team Zambia’s performance at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland as below expectations.

Team Zambia minted two bronze medals through boxing, as sprinter Muzala Samukonga failed to defend his 400 meters title won at Birmingham 2022 after clocking 45.61 seconds.

There was a yawning gap between Team Zambia and Africa’s best performing nation Nigeria, who minted seven gold, seven silver and seven bronze medals at the Glasgow Games.

In an interview with Icengelo Magazine from Kitwe, the former World Athletics Champion said Team Zambia has a lot of work to do to start winning more medals at international events.

The 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games Silver Medallist said having qualified youth coaches and participating in more junior championships would be key to enhancing Team Zambia’s display at major global competitions.

“All of us are not very pleased with the performance of our sports men and women that represented us at the Commonwealth Games. Coming back with two bronze is short of what we anticipated and it just shows all of us that our performance has gone down,” Matete said.

He said the quality of athletes Zambia sends to international events has a huge impact on the team’s performance.

“It all goes back to the kind of preparations we had put in before the games. It is important that we shift gear and start preparing upcoming athletes for the next Commonwealth Games,” he said.

“Good performance at such games does not depend on entering in all the events. It is not about the quantity of athletes but the quality of the sports men and women.”

Matete said preparations for the next Commonwealth Games and the Olympics must start now.

“As we speak now there is a world championships in athletics in Uruguay but at the moment we don’t have any representative as Zambia at these games. These are the games that determine the future athletes but we are not there.”

“We have athletes that have potential but what are we doing to support them? Are we putting them in camp? Are we attaching coaches that know how to groom them? We are not doing it. We should not wait for last minute preparations and if we continue with that trend it will be difficult for us to reap the medals we want,” Matete said.

At his peak, Matete won a gold medal at the 1991 World Championships and was twice silver medallist at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

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