Sascoc (South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) president Moss Mashishi is pleased with Team South Africa’s performance at the ninth All Africa Games, which took place in Algeria earlier this month.
Team SA came third in the event with 180 medals, of which 61 were gold. Algeria won 205 medals but had to settle for second place as Egypt had four more gold medals than the hosts. Egypt collected 199 medals, of which 74 were gold.
”We have matched our performances from the 2003 games and we are happy with that,” Mashishi said. ”Obviously we wanted to better our performance since the last games but we cannot complain about the athletes’ achievements.
Sixty-six silver and 53 bronze medals were captured by the 400 or so sportsmen and women that competed in Algiers from July 11 to July 23. Mashishi made special mention of the men’s wheelchair basketball team, who beat the hosts in the final to earn gold.
”The atmosphere was electrifying at the final,” Mashishi said. ”It was a good game and our boys fought hard for that victory.
”I tried to go to as many games but there was just not enough time. I watched some of the women’s soccer and they did very well, as well as our swimmers.
Hajera Kajee, the team’s head of delegation, also noted the fanfare Algerians showed throughout the games.
”At the basketball wheelchair final the atmosphere was incredible, but then again, the Algerians were passionate about all the sports their athletes competed in,” she said.
”They [organisers] also thanked us for sending a strong competitive team because they knew our more distinguished athletes like Ryk [Neethling] and Roland [Schoeman] would not be participating.
”They were very impressed by our swimmers who really shone at the games and also said that our athletes were very well behaved.
”They were all true ambassadors and did South Africa proud.”
The next All Africa Games will take place in Zambia and Mashishi believes the 2011 organisers can learn from the 2007 hosts.
”We will contribute to the hosting of the next games as much as we can. These games are still young and we [Africans] can still do a lot to make it a better event in the future.
”Algeria were good hosts but there are things that can be improved upon and this is the information we will be giving to Zambia.” — Sapa