Experience more important than medals at African Games

The African Games is under way in Ghana, and South Africans are already raking in medals, but you’d be forgiven if you didn’t even know it was happening.

As useful as it is as a stepping stone event, the truth is that the African Games provides little more than a top-flight development platform, and therefore it gets little attention.

In terms of athletic performances and the level of competition, the gap between the African Games and the Olympic Games is so big that many Olympic medal contenders don’t even take part at the continental showpiece.

The African Games does, however, still hold a valuable place on the calendar.

Learning curve

In order to prepare young senior athletes for the Olympic cauldron, multi-sport events like the African Games, World Student Games and Commonwealth Games have played key roles in ensuring individuals are ready to compete when they reach the highest level.

The two-week competition in Ghana, which features 16 sports, is an ideal opportunity for athletes to experience participating in a foreign environment while dealing with the pressure of competing for their country at an international multi-sport event.

And the African Games, much like the Commonwealth Games, is notorious for local organising committees delivering less than desirable living conditions and competition facilities on limited budgets.

Essentially, if an athlete can overcome the challenges faced at the African Games, they’re going to make a much smoother transition when they step up to Olympic level, where the organisation is usually top drawer and conditions are generally more suitable.

Invaluable experience

So as competitive as we can be as a nation, there is generally little interest in the African Games, and results and medals achieved are less important than the invaluable experience it offers our rising stars.

Of course, we will have good reason to feel pride if we emerge triumphant at the top of the medals table at the continental spectacle – something we haven’t achieved since 2011 – but with a second-string team taking part in many codes, we can’t take too much from that.

Less than five months out from the Paris Olympics, SA’s top athletes have bigger fish to fry, and the Games in the French capital is where we really want to see results.