• Tweet

UNLUCKY: Simon Magakwe will miss the London Games due to an anomaly Photo: Richard Huggard /Gallo Images

RELATED ARTICLES

• Where will Oscar run?
• Good luck, Blade Runner
• Father of athlete has restraining order dismissed
• Top British wrestler handed 2-year doping ban
• Magakwe wins race, but not fast enough
• Blow to SA medal hopes
• 'Kardashian husband' is an Olympics gold winner
• Nine charged with murder near London's Olympic Park
• Team SA for London announced
• Actress Salma Hayek was selected for Olympics, but not allowed to compete

The fastest man in South African history, having equalled the 10.06sec national record, impressed enough to earn invitations to top-notch European meets, lining up against Usain Bolt three times in May and June.

Magakwe ran six qualifying times in the 100m and two more in the 200m, but the recently crowned African 100m champion was not considered good enough to represent SA at the 2012 London Games.

The sad case of Magakwe's omission proves one thing - that SA's Olympic numbers just don't add up.

Of Team SA's 125 competitors for the London Games, 18 are pool swimmers. Track and field athletes - excluding the six marathon runners and one walker - total a paltry 13.

How on earth in sunny SA, where far more people are able to run, skip and jump than can swim, do we end up with more swimmers than athletes? Even if you add in the marathon runners and walker to push their squad to 20, you must throw in the two open-water swimmers. At best it's a dead heat.

But that remains an anomaly, because the Olympics are designed to accommodate far more athletes than swimmers.

Even the medals SA won at the respective world championships last year don't reflect this anomaly - the athletes won four and the swimmers one.

One obvious reason for this is the tough qualifying criteria agreed on between SA's Olympic body Sascoc and Athletics SA (ASA).

The IAAF requires athletes to achieve one A-qualifying time to secure automatic selection (as long as they are among their nation's top three), while Sascoc requires two A-qualifying times, one of those at an international meet.

Magakwe was undoubtedly the biggest loser.

Last week he became the first SA man to win the African 100m championship. His only crime was not being able to get an international qualifying time. ASA asked Sascoc to waive the qualifying rules for Magakwe and 1500m runner Johan Cronje, but without success.

Comments

• Sign in or sign up to comment

Sun May 19 19:30:27 SAST 2013 ::

Jul 6, 2012

KarlZimbiri

When Leonard Chuene took on this SASCOC thugs he was eliminated and the nation stood behind SASCOC, nobody supported Chuene except for the lone voices of Butana Kompela & ANCYL. We are still not sure what Chuene's crime was but all we know is that athletes 2day say life was better under Chuene.
How many swimming medals does SA have since 1992? 2 in Altanta, 1 in Sydney, 1 in Athens and 0 in Beijing. How many medals does track & field have since 1992? 2 in Barcelona, 2 in Atlanta, 2 in Sydney, 2 in Athens and 1 in Beijing.
Totals:
Swimming = 4
Track & field = 9
Therefore, track & field beat swimming 9 – 4.
And the overall winner is: ASA

Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

mbany8

@KarlZimbiri.

Go nkga legotlo fela fa!!
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Mamlambo

@Karl Zimbiri
You must be a Sowetan reporter with your facts.

Swimming medals since 1992: 8 (3 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze)
Athletics medals since 1992: 9 (1 gold, 6 silver, 3 bronze)

I would have loved to see Magakwe represent Mzansi at the Olympics, but if he can't run the qualifying times (even his best personal time ever would've placed him last in the Athens final) then what can be done?

SASCOC doesn't want to just "fill up numbers" and send them to the Games. They want SA to be fully competitive. The swimmers have to meet exactly the same qualifying standards (ie. having two A-class qualifying times).


Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Mamlambo

*correction - 5 silver in athletics.
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Tasto

@Mamlambo - SASCOC doesn't want to just "fill up numbers" and send them to the Games. They want SA to be fully competitive. The swimmers have to meet exactly the same qualifying standards (ie. having two A-class qualifying times).

But thats what they did with bionic fcuken c.rap !!

Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Papage

Sorry Boy, Boy, Leonard is not here to rescue you, like he did with Caster, we have a bunch of perfectionist who will bring no medals this year.
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

KarlZimbiri

@Mamlambo
I rechecked my stats and found it to be 9 - 8 to athletics, U are very correct.
BUt what I also found is that the number of swimmers taken to olympics is always high, so their record of 8 medals is not enough.
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Cya911

I really feel for this man, i know the pain he is going through since i also went through the same pain 9 years ago in the same federation that he belongs to. After winning the National Champs with best time ever run in this country which is still standing in the youth categories I still did not make the final cut for the World Youth Championships, instead the guys who were 3rd and 4th in our race are the ones that were selected to go to represnt the country. Looking at the time i ran in this country, I was ranked 3rd in the world which was equivalent to the bronze medal, to make things worse the two guys selected did not make it to finals too. Thats why I did not see myself as an athlete in this current age and I am successfull and happy where i am. Tough Luck Simon Sh*t happens in this country.
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

dimpho_4U

title so harsh ..NXA.
Report Abuse

Jul 6, 2012

Lireen

He is not the fastest South African in history. In 1968 Paul Nash equaled the then world record of 10.00 seconds four times.
Report Abuse

Read all 11 comments