Godfrey Mokoena, arguably the most exciting talent in South African athletics, has become the victim of a mix-up in the South African Olympic camp that resulted in him arriving two hours late for his triple-jump qualifying round at the Olympic Stadium in Athens last Friday.
The 19-year-old athlete from Nigel was woken up an hour before midnight on Thursday night and told that the starting time for his event had been shifted from 10am to 11.30am on Friday.
Yet, a Sunday report quoted South African team management as blaming Mokoena for the mix-up. They claimed that the world junior champion and South African record holder (16,96m) had misread his programme.
Imagine the stress for the youngster, who is in his matric year at Nigel High School, when he arrived at the stadium to discover that the triple-jumpers had already left the waiting area for the track.
Instead of a two-hour build-up to his event in which he should have spent 60 minutes warming up and focusing, then another hour in the waiting room, he had to rush on to the track with 10 minutes to spare.
His coach, Elna de Beer, who is teacher at Nigel High, was in tears in the stands when Mokoena failed to qualify for the final.
She couldn’t understand how he had arrived so late.
Now Mokoena, a devout Christian who is a hostel and school prefect, has been blamed for misreading the programme.
Mokoena, who brought his school files to the Athletes’ Village to study for matric exams when he returns to South Africa, refused to be drawn into the controversy.
”I’m still young and this has been a great experience for me. I’ve learned a lot here and I believe I’ll be a better and wiser athlete by the time the Beijing Olympics come,” he said.
South Africa’s Olympic management nudged the blame aside when Hestrie Cloete arrived in Athens 10 days ago and she was expected to be fetched from the airport.
When her lift failed to pitch up, the world high-jump champion caught an Olympic bus to the Athletes’ Village.
Management initially said it had sent a car out, but it couldn’t link up with Cloete because of the tight security at the airport.
Then it issued a statement quoting Cloete as saying that special transport had not been arranged for her and she simply fell in line with other South African athletes who arrived late at the Games and who caught Olympic buses from the airport. — Sapa
Special Report: Olympics 2004