Look what we have done with very little; imagine what we could do with more money and support from the government and business.
That’s the message from our triumphant Olympians and sports administrators on the verge of the country’s best-yet performance at the Games as we edge ahead of the famed Kenyans to be Africa’s best achievers at London 2012.
The SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula will ask Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to get the government to “walk the talk” when it comes to finanically assisting SA sport.
And they could use the example of host country Britain, which has invested £310m (about R3.9bn) since 2009 and is currently third in the medals table, behind the USA and China.
UK Sport, the official agency for sports funding, receives around £100m (around R1.2bn) a year from the treasury and the national lottery for sports.
For the Olympics that money is being supplemented by a private sponsorship scheme.
By comparison, our spending is hardly impressive.
A total of R33.8m was invested for the Olympics and Paralympics, according to a Sascoc presentation in February.
Another R1.4m was spent on Olympic scholarships.
The sports ministry does not directly fund athletes through its budget – R848.4m this year – but federations such as Sascoc largely rely on Lotto money and sponsorship deals.
However, the government, since at least last year, upped spending on “scientific services” to train athletes for this year’s Olympics.
Preparation for the games also meant spending on consultants increased from R35 000 in the 2008/9 financial year to R1.1m in the 2011/12 financial year and was set to increase to R2.5m, according to the budget information, mainly due to preparations for the London Olympics and Paralympics and the school sports programme.
Yet, those figures compare poorly with funding for the under-performing football sector: this week Absa announced an extension of its sponsorship of the PSL, reportedly to the tune of R750m over five years.
SA is riding the wave of medals from the swimming, rowing and kayak sprint events, which have bettered the record of one silver at the last Olympics in Beijing, and equalled the previous-best gold medal tally of three scored at the 1996 Atlanta games. At the 2004 Athens Olympics SA won the most-ever medals – six – but only one gold, for the men’s 100m freestyle relay.
In SA, some athletes receive Sascoc and other funding, but the country’s most decorated swimmer, Roland Schoeman, said he had received nothing for the past 18 months after coming sixth in the 50m freestyle, according to Sport24.
“I would have loved to have been faster. But not to have been funded at all for the past year-and-a-half by the SA government, not by Sascoc, not by anybody… To come and be placed sixth in the world after everybody had written me off, I’ll take that,” the US-based swimmer is quoted as saying.
But the pressure has also been on even for funded federations, such as swimming and hockey.
Sascoc has promised R400 000 for a gold medal winner, R200 000 and R80 000 respectively for silver and bronze winners, while coaches also stand to win. For the Paralympics, the medal rewards are R100 000 for a gold medal, R75 000 for silver and R40 000 for bronze.
Sascoc spokesman Gary Lemke said setting the benchmark of 12 medals was used as motivation to inspire Team SA for the London Games. “The 12 medals was always there as a motivation for the athletes and created expectation for the country.”
“We believe that by setting the target high it has helped our athletes in their ambition.”
Lemke said the medal winners would play a big role in inspiring SA’s upcoming athletes.
“Chad le Clos’s heroes were Penny Heyns and Ryk Neethling. Now he will be the hero to young swimmers who will come through the ranks…”
Lemke said that the London Games acted as perfect preparation for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“There are long-term structures and procedures already in place and we’re already looking forward to 2016.”