Sascoc funding model under scrutiny, with eyes on big SA medal haul at LA Olympics

25 Aug 2024

The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee sees 2028 as an opportunity for one of the country’s biggest Olympic medal hauls to date.

South Africa claimed six medals at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, double the haul from the Tokyo Games three years before. The increase in medals is in part because athletes have been funded by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) again, but not everyone is getting paid.

Headed into this year’s Games, South Africa’s greatest Olympian yet, Tatjana Smith, was a near certainty to win a medal in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events, given the rapid times she swam throughout the season. On the other end of the spectrum, javelin ace Jo-Ané van Dyk, who claimed a terrific silver medal, was a surprise medal winner in Paris.

Qualifying for the Games was an achievement in itself for the athlete from Heidelberg. The qualifying distance in the javelin for the Paris Olympic Games was 64m – a distance Van Dyk had never thrown in a competition until she stepped into the Stade de France for the Games.

Instead, Van Dyk qualified for the Olympics because of her World Athletics ranking position, before everything clicked at the quadrennial event.

Van Dyk’s first launch of the javelin in Paris was 64.22m, which was a personal best and gave her an automatic spot in the final.

She went on to claim second place at the Games behind Haruka Kitaguchi, who flung the javelin 65.8m against Van Dyk’s 63.93m – the first time a distance of less than 64m had earned a medal since new specifications were made to the laws in 1999.

It was as perfect a three-day period at the Olympics as Van Dyk could have hoped for.

Funding programme

However, it later emerged that the new Olympic silver medallist had – along with her parents – been funding her athletics career without the help of Athletics South Africa (ASA) or Sascoc.

Sascoc funded 56 of the 149 athletes who were sent to the Olympic Games through a three-tier Operation Excellence (Opex) programme sponsored by Bidvest.

It’s unclear how much Sascoc earned in the past two years and what the sources of its income are, because it has not published an annual report since 2022.

Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie has in recent weeks indicated that the government will offer support to athletes over the next four-year cycle. Part of that support should be in demanding more transparency about Sascoc’s funding model and expenditure, and monitoring the contributions to federations to ensure the money is reaching its intended targets.

“We can’t fund every athlete, that’s impossible,” said Leon Fleiser, high performance general manager at Sascoc and chef de mission for Team South Africa at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris.

According to Fleiser, Sascoc does not receive enough support from the government to support every athlete, hence the reliance on corporate companies such as Bidvest.

The goal is to attract more corporate sponsors in order to support more athletes financially.

“That’s why what we say is give us your cream, we’ll look after them. You now look after the next tier,” Fleiser said about federations nominating their best athletes for funding. “The different federations get funding [directly]. They get money from Lottery, they get money from the government and they… are in charge of their sport.

“In fact, in our contracts with the federations for the Olympics and Paralympics, they are the ones that are supposed to prepare and qualify their athletes.

“Our job, technically, is just to take them to the Olympic [and Paralympic] Games. Obviously, we know that there are problems and we always try to fund and see how we can stretch our money as much as possible.”

Tiered system

Tier one athletes earn R300,000 a year, tier two athletes get R150,000 and tier three athletes R75,000.

The upper echelon includes athletes such as Smith and Akani Simbine among a list of 24 of South Africa’s best Olympic and Paralympic athletes. These are athletes who “often compete and excel on international stages”, according to Sascoc’s website.

The second tier includes a number of athletes who competed valiantly at the Olympics in Paris, including Prudence Sekgodiso (athletics), Candice Lill (cycling) and Rebecca Meder (swimming).

Sascoc describes these athletes as “on the ascent, showing significant promise and results at national and regional levels”.

The third tier, assigned to “emerging talents”, includes impressive sprinter Benjamin Richardson and Brian Raats, who made the final of the men’s high jump in Paris.

Read more: Lottery steps in at 11th hour to help fund Team SA at Paris Olympics

According to those in charge, Van Dyk did not fall into any of these Opex categories at the time of its initial reintroduction at the start of 2023 or when new contracts – for between April 2024 and the Olympic Games – were handed out.

Sascoc has certain criteria that athletes have to meet to qualify for the Opex programme. Federations then put forward athletes’ names and Sascoc approves a number of athletes according to its budget. Its budget for funding athletes through the Opex programme was R20-million in the last contract cycle.

In Van Dyk’s case, if she met the criteria to be funded, the responsibility of ensuring she would be part of the Opex programme lay with ASA in nominating her for funding.

“If [Van Dyk] was throwing like that six months ago, she would be on Opex,” Fleiser explained. “Things like that happen. We’re going to have athletes that we’re going to spend lots of money on that won’t medal and there will be athletes we didn’t invest money in that do medal.”

Relays

A focused investment Sascoc and ASA identified as a possible medal opportunity in Paris was in the men’s 4x400m and 4x100m relay events.

“They had training camps, they had World Relays, then they had 10 to 12 days [before the Olympics Games] in Montpellier just training on those handovers,” Fleiser said.

This culminated in the men’s 4x100m team of Bayanda Walaza, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Simbine winning a silver medal in 37.57s – a new African record – despite their second-fastest sprinter this season, Richardson, being ruled out of the relays because of an injury.

The men’s 4x400m team, consisting of Gardeo Isaacs, Zakithi Nene, Lythe Pillay and Antonie Nortje, finished fifth in their final, setting a national record of 2:58.12.

LA 2028

By the time the Los Angeles Olympic Games rolls around in 2028, the relaunched Opex programme will be five years old. For this reason, Sascoc sees 2028 as an opportunity for one of the country’s biggest Olympic medal hauls to date.

“LA is going to be a bigger team than Paris, that I can guarantee,” Fleiser said.

“We want as many athletes as possible on Opex because we understand that it’s going to help us get a better medal return in LA.

“The criteria will still be in place because we will never be able to fund every athlete the same.

“We have to prioritise where we’re getting medals.”

Athletics and swimming will once again be the two main focuses for medal pushes, and investment in rowing and cycling will continue, according to Fleiser.

South Africa’s athletes have proven to be among the best in the world despite shortages in financing. With adequate financial support, they can consistently compete for medals on the biggest stage. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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Funding programme

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