THE South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee has pledged to help the cash-strapped swimming federation prepare thoroughly for the 2012 London Olympics.

Sascoc president Gideon Sam said swimmers will not be distracted from focusing on winning medals by worrying about the financial challenges of Swimming South Africa.

"We know that Swimming South Africa are going through a rough patch in terms of funding, but that won't impact negatively on the performance of our swimmers.

"We are going to assist swimming as we are doing with the other federations because we want our athletes to win more medals than ever before."

Sowetan has learnt the situation at SSA is so bad that some staff members have already started looking for jobs after being told about the federation's dire need for funding.

Chad Le Clos is one of the top swimmers expected to win medals for South Africa.

Service providers of SSA, one of the sporting codes that has been winning for South Africa with athletics at global competitions, have not been paid for more than three months.

On the overall preparations for the Olympics, Sam said they were happy everything was going according to plan.

"We are well on track with the preparations, it is only when we work closely with Sport and Recreation South Africa that we will be successful. We are also fully behind the school sports project driven by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula and the Department of Basic Education.