Sello Mokoena has always been something of a go-getter. As a child growing up on a farm in the northern Free State he ran the 10km distance to school to get there on time. And, when school was out, he ran back home so that he wouldn’t miss lunch.
Now, as president of KwaZulu-Natal Athletics, he’s on a mission – to ensure that at least one of his province’s young athletes will bring home a medal from Rio 2016.
Since Mokoena was elected president of KwaZulu-Natal Athletics last year, developing athletes has been his primary focus.
Not so long ago Mokoena himself was an athlete, competing in cross-country events at provincial and national level. It was his disillusionment with the deteriorating state of athletics administration in the country that ended his career.
“From around 1992 there was a change in the structure of athletics in the country. We had new leadership coming in, and athletics, both in KZN and nationally, took a serious nose dive. Performance in athletics decreased dramatically in the entire country, mainly because of a lack of administrative skills.”
For Mokoena, the final straw was when he was selected to represent KwaZulu-Natal at a national event in 2005. “We traveled on old ‘skoro skoro’ buses. We had school children with us who were booked into dilapidated accommodation and fed terrible food. I knew those kids would never come back, I knew we’d lose them to another sport.”
Credibility and integrity
For a while, athletics lost Mokoena too. Frustrated and disillusioned, he distanced himself from the sport for several years until he “realised he could be part of the complaining or he could be part of the solution”.
He was elected president at the province’s 2012 quadrennial general meeting (QGM) and elections at a time when the credibility and integrity of athletics in the province were facing their biggest test. There were allegations of corruption and malpractice in KwaZulu-Natal Athletics.
His goal is to produce athletes who are able to win medals at international level. “We haven’t had that since the early 1980s. When we came into to KZN Athletics our first priority was to focus on young athletes, because a development plan can only maintain and assist senior athletes; it can’t develop them.”
First, Mokoena and his team identified talented athletes from three groups – sub-youth (aged 11 to 13), youth (aged 14 to 16) and juniors (up to 19) – and, after putting them through trials, selected 21 who met International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) standards for a development programme. The group, called the “elite development squad”, is diverse. “We have mixed races and mixed genders from all 11 districts who attend rural and urban schools.”
Mokoena’s aim is to prepare the athletes for 2016 and 2020 by assisting them in various ways, from providing them with coaches funding their travel to participate in competitions to assisting them with rehabilitation, both physical and psychological, when needed.
This does not come cheaply, but he is adamant that it is doable. He has acquired seed funding from the provincial department of sport and recreation and is awaiting the outcome of a long-term funding proposal submitted to its head. But he says that private sector sponsorship is important and he is in discussions with two major potential corporate sponsors.
Mokoena has also partnered with the Prime Human Performance Institute, which provides scientific support, like a simulated altitude training centre for the athletes.
Inundated
But, according to a source who did not want to be named, Mokoena faces a challenge from Durban’s parks and recreations department. “We have to train in darkness during the winter and put up with indiscriminate booking of the stadium to all and sundry with no consideration for KZN’s athletes’ needs,” the source says. “They will categorically tell you that it is their stadium and they will do what they want with it.”
Mokoena admits it is a problem. “Athletics tracks need to be resurfaced every six years – this hasn’t been done at the stadium for 15 years. This means we can no longer hold national events at the stadium.” He says attempts to engage the department have been fruitless and his next step is to meet the city council.
According to Victor Vaz, the co-ordinating coach of the elite squad and founder of the Fast Feet Track Club, Mokoena also faces another challenge because the University of Kwazulu-Natal does not currently offer athletes scholarships. “You can imagine that it is a complete waste of funds and coaching resources if we spend three years developing an athlete to South African champion status and then non-KZN universities steal the athlete[s] from us. A bit of chicken and egg though, because, if we don’t have bursaries up and running in the next couple of months, we stand to lose our three world-class juniors, Gena Lofstrand, Sonwabiso Skhosana and Shanice Marnce.”
Lofstrand (17), the number four ranked junior in the world, won the women’s 800m gold medal at the South African Senior Track and Field Championships this year. She says she has been inundated with emails and phone calls from American universities.
Although she hasn’t made any decisions yet, she would prefer to remain inKwaZulu-Natal.. “This is what I’m used to – with the high performance centre, I have everything I need here. It has all the technology, so it’s perfect. If the university here could offer some type of scholarship it would be nice.”
Mokoena says he is having discussions with the university and things are looking positive for 2014.