Under lockdown, it hurts to be popular in South African sport

Sport really does seem to have been handed the short end of the stick in recent months, and the longer the nation remains locked down, the more of a beating the sector takes.

The irony is that the hiding taken by the sports industry during the pandemic has been a result of its own success.

After Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement last Wednesday that the country was still locked down – lifting some restrictions which did not directly affect sport – Parkrun SA founder Bruce Fordyce again voiced his frustration.

If parkruns didn’t regularly attract more than 500 people to many of their weekly events, they would have been able to resume under Level One.

Due to their own success, however, they remain shut down out of fears that lockdown protocols will be breached.

Similarly, popular mass participation events across the country (and around the world) are having to settle for less than favourable virtual events, with some offering elite races with small fields in order to try and meet broadcasters and sponsors somewhere in the middle of a difficult situation.

It’s far from ideal, and aside from the issues faced by event organisers and federations in what has been a patchy 2020 season (at best) it has been a frustrating year for people who rely on mass participation events for both health and social reasons.

The provisional 2021 Athletics South Africa calendar released this week looks about as packed as we could expect, but the reality is that virtual events are likely to remain the standard for the foreseeable future.

As long as we remain under lockdown, only elite athletes will be allowed to actively race in events which traditionally attract thousands of participants.

For many countries, this might not mean a great deal, as mass participation events are few and far between, but in South Africa it is entrenched in the sporting culture.

Until a suitable vaccine is found, events like the Comrades Marathon, the Cape Town Cycle Tour, the Midmar Mile endurance swim and the Dusi Canoe Marathon will have to be contested virtually by most of the people who enter them.

While other sectors may be able to resume with limits of 500 people, and have been given the go-ahead to do so, sport is simply too well supported to open the gates.

In the same way that fans can’t be allowed at stadiums, mass participation events are so well attended that applying such limits becomes a very challenging task.

For now, sport fans and amateur athletes can’t be blamed for feeling at least a little agitated by the ongoing situation.

In a pandemic, it hurts to be popular.

Wesley Botton

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