Sam Ramsamy has spoken out for the first time against two of his most aggressive critics during his tenure as president of Nocsa (National Olympic Committee of South Africa) — high-powered businessman Raymond Ackerman and officials of the men’s hockey team in the run-up to the Sydney Olympics — in his book Reflections on a Lifetime in Sport that is being launched in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Ramsamy, who steps down as Nocsa president after the Athens Olympics, accuses Ackerman of having been out of touch with the realities of the new South Africa and described a remark by a certain hockey official as being the worst he had heard in 40 years of working in sport.
Reflecting on Ackerman’s role in Cape Town’s failed bid to host the 2004 Olympics, Ramsamy’s impression was that ”…This lion of the corporate jungle thought he knew it all, and treated the rest of us with contempt. As a result, there was no trust and the bid was riddled with infighting.
”When he should have been trying to build a consensus among all the diverse communities of Cape Town, he issued edicts from his office and appeared astonishingly oblivious to the mood and spirit of the New South Africa where people are no longer prepared to bow down and grovel at the feet of the big, white boss,” writes Ramsamy.
Ramsamy contends that he believed that a trusting partnership was needed between the bid, the city, the government and Nocsa, but that Ackerman ”wanted to do everything on his own”.
”Conflict was inevitable. When it became clear we would not play according to his rules, Ackerman took his ball and went home. He did not leave the bid quietly, and promptly deployed his highly skilled, highly paid publicity department to generate negative publicity for those who had confronted him.
”I became the target of heavy criticism in the media, but opted to say nothing in response, for fear of provoking further conflict and causing more collateral damage to the bid. This had always been my reaction: don’t get involved, keep a bit of dignity and wait for the hostility to blow over.
”This may have been the right strategy for the bid, but it was wrong for me because a series of falsehoods were allowed to pass unchallenged into general acceptance. Even today, I bear some of the scars of Ackerman’s vindictive and sustained onslaught.”
The biggest selection controversy since South Africa’s return to the Olympics in 1992 happened when the men’s hockey team qualified for Sydney 2000 Olympics, but the Nocsa executive kept them out because the team was ”too white”.
The local hockey community complained that the decision was racist and apartheid in reverse.
Ramsamy explains his side of the story for the first time in his book. ”They duly protested to the Interntional Hockey Federation and the IHF took their case to the IOC who eventually ruled in Nocsa’s favour.
”That should have been the end of the matter. Instead a few hockey officials and players pursued their resentment in the media, attacking Nocsa relentlessly, and me personally, and engulfing our entire Olympic campaign in bitterness and controversy.
”In reality, it was no more than the logical implementation of an absolutely transparent Nocsa selection policy.”
Ramsamy explains a two-tier selection policy, blending the ”principle of merit selection on the upper tier and a sincere commitment to develop young and historically denied talent on the second tier.
”Problems arose when white South African athletes and largely white teams began to qualify for the Olympics in sports like fencing, table tennis, rowing, hockey and the rest, that remained largely underdeveloped in the rest of Africa.
”But, in most cases they did not meet Nocsa’s selection criteria, because although they might be the best in Africa, they stood no chance of winning a medal or even reaching a final.
”And they could not qualify for the second tier, [as was the case with the baseball team to Sydney] unless they were a ‘previously disadvantaged individual’ or they were a team that included ‘previously disadvantaged’ players, as this category catered for development.
”Thus, the men’s hockey side could not be selected for Sydney 2000: even though they qualified through Africa, they stood no real chance of winning a medal and they did not include a significant number of previously disadvantaged players in their squad.
”One hockey official then asked: ‘So, if we put some blacks in the team, would you let us compete in Sydney?’
”In more than 40 years of working in sport, I don’t believe any remark has left me feeling so infuriated and disheartened,” writes Ramsamy.
”Many people had sacrificed their lives to oppose apartheid and create the democratic conditions that meant this particular official could even consider participating at the Olympics.
”Even at my level, I had suffered two decades of exile and separation from my family, persecution and bullets in the bedroom wall. Yet, I had endured and campaigned because I believed in the cause of equal opportunities in South African sport.
”Now … this individual was looking me in the eye and scornfully suggesting I should be satisfied by the cynical, cosmetic selection of a few hapless stooges.
”I replied: ‘We do not subscribe to tokenism.”’
President Thabo Mbeki, in his 11-page foreward to the book, writes that South Africans are privileged to have in their midst a patriot and humanist as distinguished as Sam Ramsamy. The book jacket states that few South Africans have aroused greater emotions than Ramsamy.
As the SA Olympic team prepares to depart for Athens next Tuesday, Ramsamy continues to arouse great emotions among South Africans.
Reflections on a Life in Sport: Sam Ramsamy, is published by Greenhouse and sells for R99,95. – Sapa