Coaches Bob Cervanka, Nico van Heerden and Ian Harries, normally responsible for the physical shape and form of their athletes, are carrying heavy emotional loads for athletes Jacques Freitag, Llewellyn Herbert and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, who are among South Africa’s top medal hopes at the Olympic Games in Athens.
Coach Ros Howell was upbeat on Tuesday after South Africa’s hockey women drew 2-2 against Spain in a warm-up friendly for their vital opening Olympic match against Holland on Saturday. ”This was a good effort,” said Howell after the game. ”The Spanish are always a tough nut to crack.”
Kelly Wilson, a member of South Africa’s fencing team, is a nature conservationist with a passion for cheetahs who is on a double mission at the Athens Olympics. While the copper-haired athlete is sharpening up for sudden-death fencing action, she is monitoring the build-up to a court case involving the death of her favourite cheetah.
Athlete Hendrik Mokganyetsi, a veteran campaigner in the SA Olympic team, collapsed during training at the Olympic Village on Saturday and spent the weekend in hospital. Wayne Derman, the chief medical officer of the SA team, said on Sunday that Mokganyetsi had undergone medical tests and doctors had found no problems with him.
The thoughts of the women among South Africa’s Olympic team were with their sisters who celebrated Women’s Day back home, but none in the team considered herself more fortunate than hockey-player Pholo Tsoanelo. Pholo’s name means ”fortunate one” and the Gauteng player considers herself extremely lucky to be in Athens for her first Olympics.
SA athlete collapses in Athens
A lean-looking South African team carry a huge burden as they depart on Tuesday for Athens to embark on their fourth Olympic campaign since re-entry into world sport just more than a decade ago. Twelve years down the line, the 106-member team have been labelled as too white and not truly representative of their country’s demographics.
South African champion Hezekiel Sepeng and world indoor champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi — both Olympic medal contenders — get together in the 800m on Friday night in Zurich for the first time on European soil this year to feel out their opposition for the two-lap showpiece in Athens.
Sam Ramsamy has spoken out for the first time against two of his most aggressive critics during his tenure as president of Nocsa (National Olympic Committee of South Africa) — high-powered businessman Raymond Ackerman and officials of the men’s hockey team in the run-up to the Sydney Olympics — in his new book Reflections on a Lifetime in Sport.
Llewellyn Herbert, silver medallist in the 400m hurdles at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, is well on his way to recovery after a bad reaction to a course of anti-malaria tablets for the recent African Athletics Championships in Brazzaville. A contingent of South African Olympians modelled the team’s uniforms at Nocsa House in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Athletics South Africa said on Tuesday that Comrades Marathon champion Vladimir Kotov should never have been awarded the R65 000 prize for the first South African home, because he is not a SA citizen. Kotov was applauded when he declined the prize and instead presented it to Willie Mtolo who finished fourth in the race.