18/08/2024
IN today's Sunday Tribune...
The mountains South African sport must climb if it wants to reach its full Olympic potential:
*Can we continue to appoint officials to federations and teams based on colour - so many South Africans work as coaches of hockey, rugby and cricket teams elsewhere in the world because they are not absorbed into SA sports systems
*For how much longer will teams adhere to racial quotas
*Why are we still obsessed with fielding teams that must reflect the diversity of our nation
*Why are we not pressurising the government to provide basic facilities
"Government has done away with physical education in schools; this is the lifeblood of school sport especially in the rural areas
South African sports have mountains to climb to reach full Olympic potential
HERMAN GIBBS
Comment
South Africa has never had a sports minister as enthusiastic as Gayton McKenzie.
He has taken the country's sporting landscape by storm after his appointment in July. Since then, he has made many promises, which may or may not be grandstanding. Very often, politicians are known to be gasbags.
Last week, Netball South Africa's Cecilia Molokwane told a Johannesburg audience that President Cyril Ramaphosa had promised to build an exclusive netball arena that would help to develop netball. Ramaphosa made the promise at last year's Netball World Cup in Cape Town.
Molokwane added that she has never heard a word from Ramaphosa since. He has not even responded to a request for a meeting to chat about that promise. It now transpires this was a load of hot air from Ramaphosa because there is no sign of him keeping his promise.
McKenzie made a massive promise a few days ago after members of Team South Africa returned from the Paris Olympics. He said: "I will make sure we take no less than 300 athletes to Los Angeles."
At the recent Paris Olympics, Team SA had 138 athletes. McKenzie feels because South Africa is so passionate about sports, the team should have been bigger.
Perhaps he may have a point because countries with a much smaller population than South Africa (63 million) have fared far better. South Africa won six medals, but Australia (27 million) won 53, New Zealand (5.5) won 20 and The Netherlands (17.6) won 34. Given their population sizes, these countries punched far about their weight.
What McKenzie is blissfully unaware of is, that South African sports have mountains to climb before Team SA will grow to anywhere near that number by 2028, when the Games will be held in Los Angeles.
Many of these stumbling blocks are self-imposed and are likely to impede the progress of South African sports for years to come. Simply put, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Thirty years into democracy the hierarchy of South African sports is still concerned with producing teams which reflect the racial demographics of South Africa to reflect the nation's diversity. For many years, South Africa has introduced quotas to help with this agenda of racial demographics although national federations will say it is no longer in play.
This racial demographics agenda cannot persist if South Africa wants to field winning teams. Rugby, with three World Cup trophies in the bag, has been the exception. That is because of the contribution of private schools that offered black players bursaries to be part of their teams down the years.
Initially, all the black players in the Springbok teams were formerly from private schools. Nowadays it is different, many government schools have made great strides to develop their players, despite a lack of basic facilities. Consequently, most players of colour in the current Bok teams are no longer from private schools.
South African football has also imposed barriers for its women's/girls' teams. Instead of appointing the best coach, the national body has insisted on appointing only females as head coaches. Imagine how devastated the parents must feel because SAFA will not appoint the best coaches to the girls' age-group teams.
Another stumbling block for SA sports is the election of officials, who are not equipped to head up national federations. Through no fault of theirs, some officials have not been exposed to the highest levels of sport but insist on holding down key positions in sporting organisations. They learn about day-to-day administration as time goes by, but their learning experience comes at a cost to the fundamental progress of the athletes.
There is no doubt some of these officials love sport and are fully committed. However, so many athletes have said that when they approach federation officials with problems, these officials are completely in the dark. They have never been exposed to the admin of their sport at an international level and have no understanding of the needs of international athletes.
Many local international athletes have raised issues with officials, and they have been left distraught because of a lack of knowledge about issues in their sport.
Federations complain about the lack of funding and it is a massive problem. Federations regularly appeal to corporate South Africa for sponsorships without success.
However, many federations are so poorly run that corporates do not respond. In the past few months, sponsors have come forward with individual sponsorships rather than splash their cash on federations.
Before McKenzie can even start to help sport, he'll have to start with his department which he inherited from previous sports ministers.
These are the thoughtless officials who decided to spend R22m on a national flag and rolled out the taxpayers' money to sponsor super fans to world events with first-class trimmings.
Thankfully, McKenzie has ensured that the gravy train has stopped running otherwise they all would have been carrying his bags at the Paris Olympics.
