Ramatsiyi Moholoa

A new sports federation catering for university students in South Africa was born in Tshwane on Saturday.

It is known as the University Sports South Africa and replaces the South African Student Sports Union. This comes after talks with the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee.

There were fears that Sassu would also die a natural death like the United Schools Sports Association of South Africa, which was running sports activities for primary and high schools.

Also present at the meeting on Saturday to witness the birth of the new body was Mark Alexander, the treasurer of Sascoc. It was agreed on Saturday that the new body would also operate from Loftus, as was the case with Sassu.

Glen Bentley, president of the new structure, said: "We (Sassu) were supposed to hold elections on Saturday but a decision was taken to put them on hold until September when Sascoc will be having theirs after the Beijing Olympics.

"We have agreed that Sascoc will not run university sports."