South Africa’s sporting renaissance that started in Muirfield on Sunday should continue in Manchester this weekend despite an absentee list among the athletics squad that, were it a school register, would prompt the principal to close it down for fear of the epidemic spreading further.
It seems that ever since hammer thrower Chris Harmse told the South African selectors he wasn’t available to go the Commonwealth Games because his final falls on a Sunday, the telephone at Athletics South Africa has not stopped ringing.
By the time the South African team raised the national flag in the athletes’ village the squad had been reduced to a size insufficient to make up a rugby side.
Of the 30 athletes who should have been in England this weekend 11 have withdrawn. And when you consider that of the 19 left, six are there on relay duty, South Africa arrive at these Games disturbingly under-represented.
Joining Harmse on the sidelines are Hezekiel Sepeng, Llewellyn Herbert, Alwyn Myburgh, Paul Gorries, Mak-hosonke Fika, Hendrick Mokganyetsi, Jacques Freitag, Brian Erasmus, Drienkie van Wyk and Surita Febbraio. A realistic estimate is that their absence has cost Team South Africa five medals.
Much has been made in the news- papers in recent weeks of just how small the South African team is to these Games. On the face of it, it suggests our athletes are not up to standard.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. When it comes to the number of athletes selected for either Olympic or Commonwealth Games never before has funding had such an impact on the size of team the country has been able to send.
Make no mistake, it’s a crisis and the sporting and sponsorship communities should wake up to it.
But that doesn’t mean South Africa’s athletes will emerge from the competition empty-handed. In fact, far from it. But that in turn doesn’t excuse those officials who, despite being hamstrung by budgets, have failed to take account of the reasonable assumption that in the run-up to the Games some of the team’s members would withdraw through injury.
Against this background it’s hard to figure out why more of South Africa’s youngsters who have competed successfully at the World Junior Championships were not added to a reserves list. That South Africa can go to a Commonwealth Games without provision having been made for someone like Louis van Zyl is a great shame.
Last Friday night in Kingston, Jamaica, he turned out what was probably the athletics performance of the year. His 48,89-seconds to win the world junior 400m hurdles title was the fastest time ever by a 16-year-old.
With our other two 400m hurdlers among the South African withdrawals, Van Zyl would have been a suitable replacement. And he would have been a gold medal contender.
Local man Chris Rawlinson, who has run 48,28-seconds this season, will now line-up as a virtually unopposed favourite. If Van Zyl were there it would have been rather different.
But let’s not get down too much on ourselves or indeed our officials. Even without the absent 11 and Van Zyl, South Africa’s athletes should still do nicely. They may even end the country’s 44-year drought of gold on the track.
In the field, Hestrie Cloete (high jump) and Frantz Kruger (discus) are a shoe-in for gold. Meanwhile, Janus Robberts (shot) and pole-vaulter Okkert Brits have outstanding chances.
Things will be a little tougher on the track. But let’s start with Heide Seyerling. She finished sixth in the Olympic 400m final two years ago and embarked on her winter preparation believing that four of the five athletes in front of her in Sydney would be there.
But all of them — the Olympic champion Cathy Freeman, silver medallist Lorraine Graham (now Fenton), and the English duo Katharine Merry and Donna Fraser (they were third and fourth) — are missing from the individual event. In their absence, just the geriatric Jamaican Sandie Richards — she’s the defending champion and finished seventh in Sydney — stands in Seyerling’s way.
With transformation such a key issue in the selection of national teams these days, a black champion would go down very nicely. For one of those, look no further than the men’s 800m.
In the absence of Sepeng, Mbulaeni Mulaudzi has an opportunity to make his mark. He finished sixth, ahead of Sepeng, in last year’s World Championship final. And he seems to have a hunger that his teammate has either lost or perhaps never really had. Sepeng was second in 1994 and again four years later.
Mulaudzi is a very different athlete to Sepeng. He’s more in the streetfighter mould and prefers to run his races either from, or at least very close to, the front. His gait is also rather less aesthetic though it disguises an impressive turn of foot. At 21, Mulaudzi is still young and Manchester could provide the perfect springboard from which to launch a brilliant career.