Where to from here?

This time next week the Olympic Games will be a distant memory, overtaken by our endless fascination of rugby, soccer and cricket. When 2020 rolls around, we’ll awake from our slumber and again immerse ourselves in the Olympic jamboree.

I was reminded of this truth when I read pleas that South Africa should adopt an Olympic culture, whatever that means. That’s wishful thinking. The many bits and pieces that make up our national sports fabric – federations, government, athletes, sponsors, coaches and fans – are so far apart you couldn’t get them into the same room, much less agree with one another.

But if we want to start a revolution, having mighty Wayde van Niekerk as the fuse would be the perfect way to start. The green shoots of talent abound in every small village and major city around South Africa, but athletics’ inability to nurture such talent means that tons of potential is never realised.

South Africa should be an Olympic powerhouse. We produce people who have the necessary physical attributes, we are competitive and excellent facilities are available for elite athletes.

Yet the ratio of athletes who attend the Games and the medals return is out of whack. Many participants seem to wilt amid the pressure of an Olympic Games and the opportunity is squandered.

Talent isn’t the problem. Exploiting it is.

What SA sport needs is a high performance revolution that underpins every elite-level competitor, be it in athletics, canoeing, boxing or table tennis. With few exceptions, our sport functions in small, isolated pockets. There’s little integration; each muddles its way through competition.

There are exceptions, like the Tukkies HPC where so many of our athletes have begun to emerge. But where is the equivalent for other athletics disciplines, or for sports like diving, soccer, wrestling and cycling?

If you think that SA won just a single medal in Beijing and six in London, this year’s return is encouraging, the most won at a single Olympics since the country’s return to international sport in 1992. But how many finalists could have been turned into medalists? How many bronze winners could have won silver? How many silver medalists could have stood atop the podium?

The irony is that South Africa possesses startlingly good resources: its people. Just imagine what intellectual capital people like Penny Heyns, Josia Thugwane, Ross Tucker, Roger Barrow, Sizwe Ndlovu, Marsha Marescia, Graham Hill and even tannie Ans Botha could bring to the table. Every single one of them would be willing to share their insights. If only someone could be bothered to ask them.

Athletics is the most glaring example of our sporting inertia. For years Athletics South Africa has muddled along, putting its energies into political point-scoring rather than awakening the sleeping giant. Sponsors used to line up outside the door, but those days are long gone.

So too the big-city meets that should to be such a highlight on the calendar. Big names would come out, stadiums would swell. One year they enticed Michael Johnson here. Just for fun he ran the 300m in Pretoria, breaking the world record, which still stands.

Eighteen years ago we hosted the Athletics World Cup. Marion Jones was one of the stars, winning the 100m (thankfully before her fall from grace).

The point is that athletics had a buzz about it. It mattered.

Van Niekerk’s golden run this week could light the flame for athletics, but my fear is that the sport’s leaders won’t grasp the nettle. I know this because swimming had such an opportunity in 2012, following the Olympic glories of Cameron van der Burgh and Chad Le Clos in London. But nothing changed.

No major sponsor came to the party, no new pools were developed, no major event was staged. Swimming continued to operate in the backwaters. Le Clos skinned the greatest Olympian in history four years ago, but it’s almost like it never happened. The swimming revolution was stillborn.

Let that not be the enduring legacy of the 2016 Olympics, which produced perhaps the greatest single performance in South African sports history.

Let us plan for more such shimmering moments. Let us plan (and pray) for more Wayde van Niekerks. – © Sunday Tribune