The Commonwealth Games could restore the lustre to South African sport. At this time of mourning for our national sporting teams we don’t need some poncy philosopher to remind us that success on the international sporting stage is an ebb ‘n flow situation. What we do need when the tide is out, however, is some solace. So how about this? The Commonwealth Games open in 90 days’ time.
Towards the end of July our sporting warriors will, under the banner of the rainbow nation, make their way to the north-west of England to test their skills against the great and the good of the former empire. All that stands between some of them and a golden gong will be the multi-million dollar men and women of nations rich in sporting heritage like St Helena, the Falkland Islands, the Isle of Man, Cyprus and Nauru.
Do you get the idea? You see, as excited as people like me will get in Manchester as we proclaim to captive TV audiences, ”? and Van der Merwe gets the gold”, there’s no kidding the true sporting aficionado. He, like me if I’m going to be honest, will have you know that the Commonwealth Games are a bit of a soft touch.
But far from bemoaning the fast-approaching opening ceremony of the centrepiece of the colonial sporting calendar, let’s turn it to our advantage. By the end of July, after all, Bafana Bafana will have probably returned winless from Japan and South Korea while Rudolf Straueli may have been driven out of Springbok office after two sub-par performances against another Commonwealth nation, Wales.
That, of course, is assuming the former bagman Rob van der Valk was wrong and we still have enough rugby players left in the country worthy of the green ‘n gold to enable the Bloemfontein and Newlands Tests to go ahead.
Like a phoenix from South Africa’s sporting ashes, the Commonwealth Games team will rise to the challenge.
They’ll be hungry and better prepared than ever before. Their diets will have been carefully monitored; their peaks timed to the nearest hour, ll and even the new science of cultural acclimatisation ll accommodated within their training regimen. Athletes scheduled to participate at venues in Bolton and Salford will have acclimatised by spending weeks on end in solitary confinement in Boksburg and Secunda and only been flown to their competition venues at the last possible moment to avoid the benefits of their preparations being diluted.
Enough of the irony.
Suffice it to say that in the greater scheme of things the Commonwealth version is a good way short of the Olympic Games. But the timing couldn’t be better.
As is the case with other major multi-sports championships, the athletics programme forms the centrepiece of the games and it is their success or failure that will largely shape public opinion. Which is why this writer, at least, is feeling encouraged.
The aftermath of the Engen Series should have been a time for the specialist media to pat our athletes on the backs for a job well done. Instead, this week has been dominated by the controversy over the appointment of Ekkart Arbeit as national athletics coach.
That the controversy gathered pace this week is less a reflection on poor timing of the announcement by Athletics South Africa than the slowness of the local media to pick up on a story that was reported in this newspaper more than two months ago. To précis the controversy, the South African media is, all of a sudden, up in arms over the appointment of a former East German as national coach even though 15 years ago he was up to his neck in needles, syringes and anabolic steroids.
I smell the whiff of hypocrisy here. Here’s why. How many times have I seen members of the press corps in recent weeks sharing a beer and stale samoosa in the media lounge at athletics meetings with a gentleman called Stephane Kotze? Kotze is one of our top coaches but a man who has unfortunately had two members of his small squad test positive for steroids. No evidence exists to suggest Kotze had anything to do with the athletes’ doping exploits. But the same could be said of Arbeit during his time in charge of the East German team. He too is being branded guilty on the strength of his association with others.
So what of the athletes? This year’s Engen Series served to illustrate just how far they’ve come since 1992 when the very presence of Olympic champion Gwen Torrence at the East London leg scared off all but a 14-year-old meisie called Heide Seyerling. In Manchester, 10 years on, Seyerling will be, as the former commentator turned boxing supremo Dumile Mateza had us know almost incessantly throughout the Barcelona Olympics, ”going for gold”. And she’s not alone.
Frantz Kruger, Hestrie Cloete and Llewellyn Herbert may have all suffered defeat at some point during the Engen Series but have matured into athletes who show a steely resolve that was lacking in all but Elana Meyer when the gate went up on South Africa’s return to international competition a decade ago.
This year’s series also confirmed the arrival of a new young star. At 21, Mbulaeni Mulaudzi has plenty of growing left to do but his two victories over 800m followed by a 1500m win in Cape Town suggested he has the potential to develop into a world-class athlete.
He can take another step in that direction with a victory at the Manchester games.