Ken Borland

“People must not praise the government for supporting sport. That’s like praising a fish for swimming, it’s what it’s meant to do”.

So says Fikile Mbalula the sports minister and one of the more extraordinary people on a South African political scene that regularly shifts into the realm of the bizarre.

South Africans, like people in most other nations, have widely differing views on just what government should be doing and how well they are doing it, but the nation, almost as a whole, seems to be clamouring for more support for sport in the wake of the feel-good factor generated by the Olympics.

Sascoc initially set a target of 12 medals for the London Olympics, but given that the previous Games brought just a solitary silver medal for Khotso Mokoena in the long jump, nobody who was in their right minds believed that was likely.

Instead, the 2012 Olympics produced three golds, two silver and one bronze medal; and the target of 12 medals has now been allocated to the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

So who is going to be responsible and – that most un-South African concept – accountable for ensuring there are a dozen medals being paraded around O.R. Tambo International Airport in four years’ time?

Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy admits that his organisation have the responsibility of ensuring sporting success.

“It’s very clear who the custodian of sport in South Africa is – it’s Sascoc. But we need to engage with government, the Department of Sport and the provinces.

“We cannot plan for 2016 if our funding is only annual. We need a cycle of funding and to build the most sustainable program going forward, we need government, the lottery and corporates.

“The minister of finance does not talk about sport, but we will go to Pravin Gordhan. We will push the politicians to unlock the resources. I understand there are other priorities, but sport is nation-building and it deserves some slice,” Reddy told the Mail and Guardian.

Mbalula is adamant that government has to find some money in its budget for sport.

“Government has got to come to the party. We need to support the young child in Gugulethu and Mitchell’s Plain, that’s what the Sports Plan is about, giving more than R1 billion. But the people need to put government under pressure to invest in sport so that we can compete with the likes of Australia,” Mbalula said.

The new Sports Plan will be launched on October 20. The high performance components of SA sport have been under the control of Sascoc for a while now, but the new dispensation will see the establishment of a national plan that will need to be implemented in all the provinces, while the government will look after sport at the school and grassroots levels.

“The national agenda needs to dictate the provincial pathway, it’s like the Springbok coach always says, he wants everyone playing the same way,” Reddy said. “The plan will also include the provincial academies, which for five or six years have been all over the place, and the coaching framework.

“The school sport plan has not worked for many years, physical education is out of the curriculum and what is taught in life orientation skills is just not the same. It took the two ministers [sport and education] longer than envisaged to decide how the new process would work, but Minister Mbalula has the passion, nothing is impossible with him, and he has the drive.”

Of course, part of the reason for the improved medal haul this year from one to 12 was the increased financial support from corporate South Africa. Companies like Sasol, Nedbank, Vodacom and SAB have a long history of backing sport, but there have been some strident voices out there calling on them to give more, because it’s “payback time”.

Such arrogance can only murder the golden goose and, as it is, the confidence of corporate South Africa in sports administrators is not exactly of the highest order.

According to some public critics, the tracks of the government gravy train also reach the offices of Sascoc in Melrose and there is obviously something of a power struggle going on between the organisation and some of the national federations.

“With due respect to the federations, they are not always right when it comes to their talent identification and we have to verify a lot of their submissions. We can’t go to the Olympic Games and wonder if we’re going to get medals, so we have to work together with the national federations,” Reddy said.

The Chinese approach of centralised control is obviously the template Mbalula favours.

“We must do what China do. We can’t compete with them, but we can replicate what they do within our limits. This one-off talent identification is a killer. There must be a process, from when the athletes are school kids,” Mbalula said.

The selection process for Rio could well begin as early as next year …

“In 2013 we must roll out the best of the best, set the standards and eliminate those who can’t reach them. We can’t wait for the sports plan to take effect for the next Olympics, we need to start now,” the sports minister stated.

The South African sports-loving fraternity will hope the minister’s words are backed by the wallet of government – the hard-earned taxes they themselves have paid.

Habits that they have had since childhood will now be put aside as South African swimming gold medallists Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh get used to their changed lives after the London Olympic Games.

The pair of Olympic champions returned to Johannesburg early on Thursday morning to a tumultous welcome and tried to make sense of their achievements in a press conference with sports minister Fikile Mbalula that was broadcast live on all three of South Africa’s main television stations.

“I woke up on the plane this morning and was turning on my phone and I had to put my pin number in. That’s when I realised that since the age of 10 I’ve been using 2012 as my pin number. But now that I’ve won gold in the 2012 Olympics, I’ve achieved that goal and, for the first time in 14 years, I’ll have to change my pin!” Van der Burgh, the winner of the 100m breaststroke in a world record time of 48.46 seconds, said.

Le Clos snatched gold in the final stroke of the 200m butterfly from American Michael Phelps, who has retired as the most successful Olympian in history with 18 golds and 22 medals overall, and the 20-year-old from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal said he was still coming to terms with beating his hero.

“It was a very special Olympic Games for me, and the last time I race against Michael Phelps. He is such an inspiration for me and the last time we met before the Olympics, I was asking him for hundreds of photos and his caps and goggles! I’m still a great fan of his and it was the most overwhelming feeling to beat him. It just shows that you should never give up on your dreams, no matter how far behind you are in the race,” Le Clos said.

Both swimmers committed themselves to ensuring South Africa build on their London success and win more medals in the pool at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. Le Clos added a silver medal in the 100m butterfly to lift South Africa to fifth in the table, ahead of aquatics powerhouses such as Australia and Russia.

“Chad and I spoke about it on the flight from London and we have the opportunity to change South African swimming, we really want to take swimming forward. South Africa only has five or six thousand registered swimmers, while Australia and Germany have 150 000 and the USA 300 000. But we still finished in the top five. There’s such a field of talent here, we just need to refine it better, we need to keep this momentum going and not kill it,” Van der Burgh said.

“In 2016, we’ll obviously have targets on our back, which means more responsibility and added pressure for us. But that just makes me excited to get back in the pool and train harder,” Le Clos said.

“There’s a lot of potential for 2016 and the Commonwealth Games in 2014 and we need to keep the momentum going. We have the platform now to build and we’ve changed the way people perceive swimming. We need to keep it going, let’s do this!”

South Africa’s head swim coach, Graham Hill, said he expected more success in 2016.

“We’ve only just begun and in 2016 these two young guys will be well and truly prepared, plus there’s a lot of young talent that wasn’t at these Olympic Games. So it all looks good for the future,” Hill said.

Van der Burgh also brushed off criticism that his mode of swimming the breaststroke included extra illegal “dolphin kicks” under the water.

“Unfortunately I’ve been the victim of some Australian press. I’ve never been disqualified or even warned once in my career and there were six different judges watching me in all my races from the heats to the final. They’re not there for a holiday and I was cleared,” Van der Burgh said.

With hundreds of supporters at the airport just after sunrise to welcome the swimmers home, even though it was a public holiday (Women’s Day) in South Africa, the air was thick with jubilation and Mbalula pledged further government support for swimming.

“We have got to prioritise going into the next Olympics and it begins tomorrow. We cannot plough money where we get no results, but swimming always delivers, even when all else fails. Government has got to come to the party and support young children who want to swim in Gugulethu or Mitchell’s Plain [deprived former apartheid townships].

“The media and public must put pressure on government to invest in sport, so we can compete with Australia and their 20-year sports plan. We did that easily at these Olympics with zero budget,” Mbalula said.

Former 800m world champion Caster Semenya said a weight had been lifted from her shoulders after she qualified for the Olympic Games in a Yellow Pages Series meet at the Tukkies University Stadium in Pretoria on Friday.

Semenya eased to victory in the women’s 800m in a time of one minute, 59.58 seconds, well inside the Olympic qualifying standard of 1:59.90.

South African Olympic organisers require athletes to meet the qualifying standard twice, once in a local meet and the other internationally, and the 21-year-old Semenya gained her first qualifying time from her second-placed finish in last year’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea.

“It’s a weight off my shoulders and I’m very happy with my time,” Semenya told reporters after the race. “I just ran my own race and it went okay, it’s best that way and I enjoyed it, that’s why I qualified.”

Semenya failed to reach the qualifying standard in last weekend’s national championships in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth, clocking 2:02.68 in windy conditions, but she became the first woman to run under two minutes on South African soil in 21 years on Friday, after running the first 400 metres in 57 seconds.

“The start was good and we had trained hard and planned to qualify in South Africa. There’s now no need for me to go to the African Championships and I know my plans for the European season, I must just be patient,” Semenya said.

The 2009 world champion, who had to undergo controversial gender tests until July 2010, seemed to make the qualifying time with ease on Friday and she said she hoped to run even faster in Europe.

“I possibly can go quicker, tonight was just my third race of the season, and I hope to go below 1:57 in Europe, but it depends on my training, which needs to strengthen me up for the Olympics. I need to last and one race does not mean anything,” Semenya said.

“In 2009 I was a little kid, I now have more experience, plus I now have Maria Mutola as my coach, who has even more experience having run for more than 10 years in Europe. We have a good relationship, we’re like best friends.

“But I’m still young and fresh, I have no pressure on me and I have to take advantage of that,” Semenya said.

The Tukkies University student said she will compete at the World Challenge in Ostrava on May 25 and in Rome on June 1, before temporarily switching to 400-metre races to work on her speed.

The evening meet brought just one more Olympic qualifying performance, with Khotso Mokoena leaping 8.29 metres to win the long jump.

The 2008 Olympic silver medallist – South Africa’s only medallist at the Beijing Games – still needs to reach the qualifying standard in an international event in order to qualify for the Olympics.

Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the 2009 men’s 800 metres world champion, continued a winning comeback to the track after an achilles injury kept him out of action for most of the previous year, by winning Friday night’s 800 metres in a time of 1:46.12, outside the Olympic qualifying standard of 1:45.60.

South Africa’s Olympic Games prospects were boosted on Friday as the Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) received over R80 million [9 million euro] from government and the National Lotteries Board (NLB) for preparations for London 2012.

Sascoc has previously complained that it has lived on scraps, leading to a decline in South Africa’s Olympic performance. Having won six medals in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, South Africa managed just a single medal – Khotso Mokoena’s long jump silver – in Beijing four years later.

Sports minister Fikile Mbalula handed over a cheque for R34 240 000 [3 980 000 euro] to Sascoc from the Department of Sports and Recreation at a breakfast function in Johannesburg on Friday, as a token of government’s support for the Olympic athletes.

“We are here today to offer our unwavering support to all our athletes who have qualified for the 2012 London Olympic Games. We do this to show our undivided support for the operational excellence of our athletes who are busy preparing for the London Games. This amount is an attempt to boost the morale and readiness of our team,” Mbalula told an audience of Sascoc executives, heads of federations, athletes and media.

Mbalula also used the occasion as an opportunity to invite corporate South Africa to support the Olympic effort.

“We believe that government cannot do this alone. We need all South Africans, especially our private sector, to come on board and contribute towards the success of our team in the Olympic Games. We hope the investment we make today will encourage the private sector to do likewise,” he said.

NLB chairman Alfred Nevhutanda said that, as an entity of the state, the lottery would support Mbalula’s initiative to ensure a winning Olympic team and donate R47.5 million [5.5 million euro] to Sascoc.

This is a steep increase from the NLB’s previous allocations of R14 million [1.6 million euro] in 2009/10 and R17 million [1.97 million euro] in 2010/11.

“We are humbled by this support  that will help achieve our athletes’ dreams of being Olympians. Minister Mbalula has been fully behind Sascoc and our Olympic effort since he came into office. I trust we will deliver and I’m confident that we can bring home 12 medals,” Sascoc first vice-president Hajera Kajee said.