Among SuperSport’s breadth of sports broadcasts, three events will define its 2016 offering.

The ICC World Twenty20, starting in March, will feature 16 teams playing 35 matches in India. Every fixture will be broadcast live and in HD on SuperSport.

The 2016 UEFA European Championship begins in France in June and runs for a month. Twenty-four teams will contest one of the biggest prizes in world football. Again, SuperSport will offer unrivalled coverage by broadcasting each of the 51 matches live.

The Rio Olympic Games, starting in August, will be the blue riband event of 2016. With numerous South Africans among the anticipated 10 500 competitors from 205 countries, interest will be high.

OLYMPIC GAMES

For the first time, SuperSport will broadcast a 24-hour Olympic news channel for the duration of the Games. This is on top of six dedicated HD channels.

DStv Explora CatchUp will play a major role in SuperSport’s all-encompassing broadcasts – every African medal and all major events will be available on the platform.

In addition, highlights and repeat broadcasts will be on all Olympic channels during “non-live” time (early morning onwards, SA-time).

SuperSport will also have news crews in Brazil. Among the hosts will be former Olympic champion Ryk Neethling, bringing his first-rate analysis to viewers, as he did in London four years ago.

Two magazine shows – Insights and Ola Brazil – will add to the depth of Olympic coverage.

ICC WORLD T20

SuperSport will be broadcasting all the matches live, with a dedicated 24-hour channel for the duration of the tournament.

There will be studio presentation on all South Africa matches, plus the semi-finals and final. We will also bring you Afrikaans commentary on all the SA matches.

The studio presentation will be hosted by HD Ackerman, with studio guests Kepler Wessels, Ashwell Prince, Eric Simons, Victor Mpitsang, Neil McKenzie and Robin Peterson.

SuperSport will be represented on the world feed commentary team by Mpumelelo Mbangwa and Shaun Pollock.

Our roving cricket reporter, Crystal Arnold, will be also be in India, sending regular updates, player interviews, cricket pundit interviews and colour pieces.

All matches will be available on SuperSport.com via live streaming and live scoring. Extensive highlights will be available on the SuperSport App and website, as well as DStv CatchUp for Explora. SuperSport Blitz will give viewers regular updates of live matches and off-the-field news, like press conferences and player interviews.

SuperSport’s weekly magazine show Inside Edge will feature updates and behind the scenes news from the Proteas and other teams.

EURO 2016

Mid-year will be dominated by the UEFA European Championship, which gathers many of the world’s best footballers.

SuperSport will have a dedicated Euro channel with 45 matches on SuperSport 3. The six matches that have simultaneous kick-offs will be broadcast on SS4.

There will be a live one-hour build-up and wrap-up on all matches with top hosts Robert Marawa and John Dykes.

SuperSport is also lining up a wealth of first-class local and international guests.

All three international events will enjoy support on SuperSport’s various platforms – TV, the SuperSport app, online, DStv CatchUp and social.

Another week, another match-fixing scandal.

Or, rather, a pair of them.

The scandals have come thick and fast in 2016, but the latest seem determined to stick around. First came revelations that local cricket hasn’t been on the level. Then, the ugly underbelly of international tennis was revealed with extensive match-fixing claims.

Similar events, but not the same. In the first instance, the claim that Gulam Bodi and his cohorts have been involved in fiddling Ram Slam fixtures is proof that cricket’s anti-corruption efforts are working. They may not be stopping the cancer, but they are exposing the enablers. This is a good thing.

Tennis’ problems go back far longer, almost a decade, and the big question to be asked is why international tennis bosses never took sweeping action at the time. Even if you assume that only some of the allegations are true, tennis has long had dirty fixtures when all was not what it seemed.

It matters little that none of the superstars are obviously involved – big money can be riding on the most obscure matches. Around 120 000 professional matches take place annually; opportunities are boundless.

Six little-known players have been banned for life in the past 10 years, but the breadth and scope of the latest allegations suggests that tennis hasn’t nearly got to grips with a problem most players are said to be well aware of.

One of the encouraging aspects of cricket’s anti-corruption drive is that even players who are approached (and do nothing) are compelled to report the fact. A couple of local cricketers are said to be in trouble on this basis, although as one former Proteas batsman told me on Sunday, Bodi was often a funny, offbeat guy who few took seriously anyway. Defining intent and clarity will trouble even the best investigators.

However, the rule itself is a good one that should also apply to tennis. Novak Djokovic, for instance, revealed that he had been indirectly approached a few years ago to swing a match. The instigator never spoke to him personally, but you wonder if this attempt was ever brought to the attention of tennis bosses.

You suspect that the nature of cricket betting, with its faceless moneymen and shady overseas bookmakers, will make it fiendishly difficult to secure convictions.

However, the precedents are encouraging. Pakistan’s Saleem Malik was the first cricketer to go to jail for match-fixing, in 2000, and since then another 18 international and 13 first class players have copped bans ranging from six months to life for fixing games. They include our own Herschelle Gibbs and Henry Williams (both six months) and, most famously, Hansie Cronje (life).

Five days ago Sri Lankan cricket authorities handed bowling coach Anusha Samaranayake a two-month ban over his relationship with net bowler Gayan Vishwajith, who allegedly approached national players to under-perform during a Test against West Indies in October.

With both cricket and tennis, the fraud isn’t perpetuated only on people placing bets. Fixing games defrauds fans who watch on the assumption that what they are seeing is real. The betrayal is massive.

As with tennis, the fraud need not occur at elite level in cricket. Ram Slam cricket is low-brow hit-and-giggle stuff, but it enjoys an international audience and the opportunities for match- and spot-fixing are plentiful.

This week’s events represent a significant crossroads for both sports. The zeitgeist around the local game is dark and downbeat, particularly after England’s brutal evisceration of the Proteas. It’s not so much the manner of defeat that rankles, but the shuddering realisation that our stocks are dangerously low. We could be set for a few lean years. Having a match-fixing scandal on top of this will only add to the disappointment.

Tennis, too, will need to take serious stock, lest it suffer the sort of fallout endured by the likes of the Tour de France, the IAAF or Fifa, whose recent scandals have imperilled their sports almost beyond repair.

These are demanding and difficult times for sport. Given how much emotional (and financial) investment many of us have in sport, the masters of the game are duty-bound to make sure it’s clean and honest.

It’s not too late, even now. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

 

 

Sorting out transformation, winning a few things that truly matter and discovering vibrant new characters would make it a year to savour for SA sport.

Here, then, my 10 things to make 2016 vintage.

Bafana pull finger
It’s a hazardous time to be a national team supporter.

Bafana sit at the bottom of their Afcon qualifying group and who knows what the World Cup qualifying draw will throw up when it is done in July?

Action will come thick and fast with three international friendlies mixed in with late-year qualifiers. Two back-to-back Afcon qualifiers against Cameroon in March will likely set the tone. Bafana have long wallowed in mediocrity. Twenty years after their great African triumph, it’s time to rekindle the fire.

T20 dreaming
We know all about the Proteas’ wretched form in ICC events. If there’s a way to self-destruct, you can be sure they’ve tried it. And yet . . . on balance we have an exciting, potentially explosive XI who can give history and tradition the bloody nose it deserves after too many years of hurt and humiliation.

Bring on the dancing girls, bring on World Twenty20.

Rio razzle-dazzle
The year is especially significant for rugby union as Sevens makes its Olympic bow in Rio. The world’s eyes will be watching, not least those who only occasionally trip over a game by accident.

The Blitzbokke are the real deal; transformed and terrific. They have every chance of being SA rugby’s good-news story of the year.

All Black (and blue)
Whoever gets the Bok coaching job will have as his first order of business unravelling the aura of the All Blacks.

It’s a nonsense how New Zealand dominate the Springboks in every sense. For South Africa to reverse this will require a bold change in mindset and ambition. Ox-wagons and orthodoxy be damned.

Colour blind
Tackling transformation is the hardiest annual in SA sport.

Not a month passes without a rumbling or three and yet it’s almost always a case of one step forward, three steps back.

Imagine if we used the energy on squabbling about quotas in a more meaningful way. SA sport is enriched by its many colours and cultures – picking the best of them can only add to the excellence, not dilute it. Oh for the day when we all understand that. And then just get on with it.

Banish the bosses
SA newspapers have an unnatural interest in sports administrators.

Overseas, the CEO’s and suits barely rate a mention. Here, hardly a day goes by without their mention. The spotlight needs to shine on those who deserve it – our compelling sportsmen and women who are unfailingly diligent and dignified, often in difficult circumstances.

Fantastic fringe
Local sport is full of go-getters and entrepreneurs who dream up events and make exciting things happen on the margins.

Away from the traditional Big Three, I’m a big fan of events like the Cape Epic, the Cape Town 10s, Warrior racing, EFC, Park Run and the Midmar Mile. The fraternal nature of these unique gatherings produces memorable jols and is a reminder that there’s a lot of good out there.

Rocking in Rio
The Olympic Games are always a slow-burner in SA terms, but when they come around they lock us in and get us talking.

Fans will lean heavily on our top swimmers for medals and it would be encouraging for the likes of Myles Brown and Sebastien Rousseau to join established superstars like Cameron van den Burgh and Chad Le Clos. Better still if there was a female or two, but we probably shouldn’t get our hopes up.

With luck, athletes Anaso Jabodwana and Wayde van Niekerk also come to the party and make it a Games to savour.

Characters and clichés
Politics, spinmeisters and the risks of social media has put the muzzle on sports stars and consequently the characters have fast begun to wilt. Where are today’s crazy personalities to compare to Benni McCarthy, James Small and Hershelle Gibbs?

Thanks to political correctness and an obsession with media training, characters have been replaced by cliché. Give us back our free thinkers and our whack jobs. We miss them. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas de Maiziere isn’t a name you will be familiar with, but he is likely to be one of the pivotal figures in world sport in 2016.

De Maiziere is the German Interior Minister – he also looks after sporting affairs – who this week announced new penal provisions for German sports dopers.

Those caught doping, including foreigners who compete in Germany, could face jail sentences of up to three years.

There’s a world of difference between a prison cell and a four-year ban from competition, so the shock-horror responses are unsurprising. This stuff just got real.

The scales have shifted fundamentally in the fight against doping in recent months. The IAAF, whose record in this area has been questionable at best, took the unprecedented step of suspending Russia rather than just its athletes for doping. With the Russian doping regime said to be institutionalised, the under-fire IAAF had no option but to act tough.

One consequence was that Russian president Vladimir Putin himself barked orders at Russian athletics chiefs to sort their nonsense out, especially if they are to compete at the Olympic Games in August. Dissent isn’t a popular sport in Russia, so you can only assume that they are busy cleaning house at a rapid rate.

The move by the Germans is doubly significant. A watershed has been reached; enough is enough.

This is the same bunch that stopped broadcasting the Tour de France on account of its doping culture. They mean business.

Bans, or the threat of such, have clearly had little effect. The returns for doping, and the associated glory that follows, are clearly seen as worth the risk if you consider the numbers of athletes who get bust year after year.

Even being stigmatised, as former World Anti-Doping Association president John Fahey warned before the London Olympics, is no deterrent.

“You have to know that you’d have this stigma for the rest of your life. You are an outcast, an absolute disaster,” he warned, to little apparent effect.

Consider that if all 436 Russian athletes who competed in 24 sports at the 2012 Olympics are now under suspicion, as Wada claims, the total number of affected medals could be 81: 24 gold medals, 25 silver and 32 bronze.

As Wada said, the Games were effectively “sabotaged” by the Russians.

Jail changes everything, especially as the Germans have made it clear that penalties will also apply to those complicit in cheating: doctors, coaches and managers. Modern sport, or at least the top end, is typically run as a slick affair. No-one dopes arbitrarily; athletes plug into a network, a culture and a clique that encourages doping. Those who feed the network need to be brought to book too. As they will: the new law says they can be jailed for up to 10 years.

Interestingly, Wada said the criminalisation of doping should be limited to those supplying athletes (otherwise known as the half-pregnant response).

That’s to say, athletes are less guilty than their suppliers, which is hogwash.

South Africa isn’t immune to doping with the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport listing 30 offenders in its last annual report. The longest ban was for two years.

Every year it’s the same.

Schoolboy rugby has long had a problem, particularly at Craven Week level, but only recently have testers been allowed into schools. The prevalence of doping at school-going age suggests the sanctions aren’t working. Jail is obviously out of the question for minors, but their suppliers ought to get the heavy-handed treatment.

Up the road, in Kenya, there are also moves to sort out what appears to be a systematic doping culture. Recently, athletics chief Isaiah Kiplagat warned that agents or coaches could be banned for life and even face prison sentences if their athletes are found guilty of doping.

“If you’re the one who injected or is found to have been contributing towards persuading the athletes to take banned substances, that’s a criminal offence.”

No-one can know if this new strong-arm approach will work in time for the Rio Games, but in the endless war on doping this is one of the biggest shifts.

Athletes must wise up – or face being locked up. – © Sunday Tribune

 

 

The past year is already ancient history. From a local perspective, the desultory form of Bafana, the Springboks and the Proteas is best left in another age. Besides, we must start a new year with positive thoughts and look to the promise of exciting things to come.

If 2015 was the year of Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams, with undercard roles for Dan Carter, Katie Ledecky and Lionel Messi, what might 2016 herald?

Our giants aren’t in their realm, but if AB de Villiers can crack on and Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh can embellish their Olympic legends, we may yet have something to celebrate in what shapes to be a difficult, challenging year.

Mid-year offers us the allure of the Rio Olympic Games. Nothing else comes close for sheer scale, not Euro 2016 nor cricket’s T20 lark.

Djokovic was undoubtedly the personality of 2015, his on-court excellence and off-court shtick offering tennis a compelling storyline throughout the year. Williams wasn’t far off and there can be little doubt that she is the greatest women’s player of all, albeit in an era without any truly memorable rivalries.

The nature of tennis means that defeats are an inevitable by-product of playing around 90 games a season. Shocks are more frequent than in, say, athletics where anything but first place for Usain Bolt constitutes a massive upset.

Even in a sport as fluid as his, it’s difficult seeing anything but injury catching up with Bolt. Drugs fiend Justin Gatlin was emphatically seen off in 2015 and Yohan Blake has been hobbled by injury. Bolt’s world record 9.58 was run seven years ago and in the past few years only one man (Blake) has got remotely close to it. Can’t see Bolt slipping up when the world’s best sprinters get set on August 14.

Olympic Sevens will be fun to watch and South Africa will be there or thereabouts, but there’s still something lightweight about the cut-down version of the game.

If I had to stick my neck out and select the personality of the 2016 Games, and perhaps of the year, I’d opt for Michael Phelps, the greatest Olympian of them all.

We know him for coming second to Le Clos in the sensational 200m butterfly final in London, but the more objective recognise him for his staggering haul of 18 gold medals out of 22 in all, spanning four Olympics.

Phelps will be the go-to man for the Big Story in Rio because he retired after London, had some run-ins with the law for drunken driving, was suspended and underwent rehabilitation. Then he returned to the pool and won three US championship medals swimming the fastest times of 2015. He’s also got engaged to a former Miss California and they are expecting a baby in May.

Now he’s back and chasing Olympic gold again. As comebacks go, this one is off the charts.

Hollywood invented the story of the great American triumph and Phelps fits that narrative squarely.

His appetite for racing is legendary, but thus far he’s pencilled in just three events for Rio: the 100m and 200m butterfly and 200 IM.

Le Clos took some pops at Phelps last year, but he subsequently recalibrated his remarks, showing due respect for the greatest swimmer in history.

Phelps’ presence on the Rio pool deck will concentrate Le Clos’ mind like nothing else, and it will motivate him massively.

“The butterfly races are on my mind and Michael Phelps’ butterfly world records have been on my mind since I won gold in London,” he said last August.

We know that Le Clos isn’t daunted by the majesty of Phelps and their clashes could be among the most-awaited in Brazil. Phelps will desperately want to win the 200m gold he so narrowly lost, while Le Clos will feel the same about the 100m, which he lost by 23/100^th of a second in 2012.

Now 30 and with changed perspective, anything Phelps now does in the water is remarkable. He’ll be the old man of the pool, but ambition will count for much and only a fool would discount his chances.

Phelps, back? Bet on it being the sports story of 2016. – © Sunday Tribune