WITH the Rio de Janeiro Olympics just a stone’s throw away (5-21 August), much hype and excitement has been brewing amongst the athletes in the South African camp, as the team has a good chance of hauling in more medals that any other SA team has achieved to date.
With well known medal contenders such as Chad le Clos, Cameron van der Burgh (swimming), Bridgitte Hartley (canoeing), Caster Semenya and Wayde van Niekerk (athletics) in the mix, the ‘August medal rush’ is on.
What adds true South African flavour to the mix is that the lightweight coxless fours in rowing and the Blitzbokke in sevens rugby are also strong medal contenders.
London 2012 saw SA claim three golds, two silvers and one bronze.
The golds came from Van der Burgh (100m breaststroke), Le Clos (200m butterfly) and the men’s lightweight fours rowing combination.
On the track, Semenya took silver in the 800m, Le Clos snatched silver in the water (100m butterfly), with Zululand’s Bridgitte Hartley paddling to bronze in the women’s K-1 500m event.
In top form Great news for South Africans is that Semenya is currently enjoying the form of her life thus far in 2016.
The athlete has already run the quickest 800m in the world this year and is cleaning up generally, as she did at last month’s African Athletics Championships in Durban, winning the 1 500m and the 800m and rounding off her golds by anchoring the women’s 4 x 400m relay team to victory.
All eyes will be on speed merchant Wayde van Niekerk, who became the first man in history to break 10 seconds over 100m, 20 seconds over 200m and 44 seconds over 400m.
But putting medals and performances aside, the story behind SA’s participation is in itself remarkable.
Swimming SA and Athletics SA plunges on without a sponsor, while the smaller sports, such as canoeing, cycling and badminton, limp along without any great changes to their already (exceptionally limited) profile.
A small array of light in an otherwise financially dark environment, came in early June when Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) announced a substantial deal with SA Rowing.
With federations besides SA Rowing grubbing around for every last buck, however, it is a miracle that SA has an Olympic squad at all. Whichever way the Olympic dice rolls, it’s going to be an interesting few weeks.
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