Zimbabwe Rowing team at the 2016 Summer Paralympics

The Zimbabwe Rowing team at the 2016 Summer Paralympics was the first rowing team to represent their country at a Paralympic Games. The team entered the para mixed coxed four finishing last in their event. The team consisted of rowers Margret Bangajena, Michelle Garnett, Takudzwa Gwariro and Previous Wiri and their cox Jessica Davis. Managed by Davis' mother, Rachel Davies, the team captured the imagination of the press due to the unlikely story of the crew's formation and the hardships they faced on reaching the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Rachel Davies, a Canadian sports administrator from Cambridge, Ontario, was assigned to Zimbabwe in 1996 by her employers, Fédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Aviron (FISA), where her role was to improve the sport of rowing in Africa. The following year she married a Zimbabwean, had a family and settled down in the country. In 2012 Davis successfully coached and registered two Zimbabwean rowers for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Micheen Thornycroft and James Fraser-Mackenzie. When Thornycrofy decided to part company from Davis to train permanently with the South African team, it left Davis with free time to spare, which resulted in a new FISA request. In an attempt to widen the appeal of rowing the International Paralympic Committee assigned four berths for African teams in the rowing program at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio. Kenya and South Africa had already taken three of the positions, and FISA now asked Davis to put forward a Zimbabwe team for the last slot.

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