Johannesburg - The samba rhythm will be guiding South Africa's 137-strong team for the Rio Olympic Games as they carry the high hopes of returning with the country's greatest medal haul yet at the quadrennial showpiece.
With great expectations come the possibility of equally bitter disappointment as South Africa have learned from past experiences at the Games.
Eight years ago South Africa sent its largest contingent to the Beijing Games - now surpassed by the class of 2016 - but returned with only a single medal courtesy of Khotso Mokoena’s long-jump silver.
It was the country’s worst performance since the 1936 Berlin Olympics when featherweight Charles Catterall was the sole medalist with a second place in the boxing.
The SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sasoc) announced a team that included for the first time, Sevens rugby and four golf players.
Performances from the last four years suggest South Africa is on course for at least an improvement on the 2012 harvest of six medals which was the country’s best since readmission.
While the team returned with a record haul of three gold, two silver, and a bronze, some medals were left behind.
Mokoena and javelin queen Sunettte Viljoen, who finished in a disappointing fourth place in London, will participate in their fourth Olympics.
They will join an exclusive club that include Olympic champions Roland Schoeman, Ryk Neethling, distance ace Hendrik Ramaala, and Winter Olympian Alex Heath.
“It means a lot to me, and now I’ve been to two Olympics in the long jump and now it is going to be two in the triple jump,” said Mokoena, who made his Olympic debut in 2004 in the hop skip and jump.
“If I can get a medal that would be one-one, and I would require a national record for me to medal and that is what I would like to achieve.”
The team certainly has the arsenal to produce the goods in Rio with the four individual medallists from London still well in the range of winning medals in their respective events.
Olympic gold medallists Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh will again be tasked to set the tone for the Games when they get in the pool in the first week.
The South African rowing squad has doubled in size, and with that their chances of winning more medals in the five boats that will be in action.
The team will be spearheaded by men’s lightweight coxless fours gold medalists turned lightweight double scullers James Thompson and John Smith.
The country’s athletics team has nearly doubled in size since 2012 with the selection of a 39-strong squad spearheaded by world 400m champion Wayde van Niekerk and Olympic silver medallist Caster Semenya.
The athletics team include 18-year-old junior sprinters, Clarence Munyai and Gift Leotlela, who both cracked the nod in the 200m.
There was relief for world 200m bronze medalist Anaso Jobodwana, who managed to convince the powers that be of his fitness.
The London 2012 finallist was in a race against time to recover from osteitis pubis, inflammation of the pubic bone of the pelvis, but again seems to be ready to take on the world’s fastest men.
Jobodwana is one of many comeback kids in the squad which also includes long jumper Luvo Manyonga, who beat the demon of drug abuse to make the team.
Top triathlete Richard Murray was named in the team three months after he broke his collarbone in a crash at the World Triathlon Series in Gold Coast, Australia while rower Lawrence Brittain beat cancer on his way to realising his Olympic dream.
“These are men and women with amazing stories, and those are the stories that will motivate other South Africans,” Sascoc president Gideon Sam said
“These are the men and women that will wear the green and gold and go out to Rio to represent the country.
“We have come to this point and now it is up to South Africans to support these athletes.”
Independent Media