In search of the black Penny

Penny Heyns made a turn at the Kings Park pool on the opening morning of the South African Swimming Championships on Monday.

It was an informal visit, just to say hi.

A plaque commemorating the first of her 14 career world records still sits above the media benches - she clocked 1min 07.46sec in the 100m breaststroke here in March 1996, in the trials for the Atlanta Olympics.

She went on to become an international swimming legend and remains the only female in history to have won the breaststroke double (100m and 200m) at a single Games.

Her 50m (30.83s) and 100m (1:06.52) breaststroke records, which were world marks when she swam them in 1999, still stand as national records, even though the world records have been improved to 29.48s and 1:04.35.

Since the glory days of Heyns and backstroker Marianne Kriel, the spotlight has shifted almost exclusively to the men.

Terence Parkin, Roland Schoeman (and his 4x100m freestyle relay team-mates, Ryk Neethling, Lyndon Ferns and Darian Townsend), Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos have achieved at the highest levels.

Thanks to all of them, swimming is South Africa's most successful Olympic sport since readmission in 1992.

It boasts 11 medals (athletics has delivered 10, rowing two, and canoeing and tennis one each).

South African swimming is clearly doing something right, although there are problems too, such as a cash-strapped administration which can't secure a title sponsor for its national gala.

But the sport is facing a new potential problem - Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula's goal of 60% quotas.

No national swimming team is going to get that percentage of black swimmers in a hurry, especially since entry standards, as for the Olympics, are based on internationally stipulated qualifying times.

It's true that South African federations have failed to transform at any great pace, but before the minister gets too preachy he should look in his own back yard first.

Professional boxing - which happens to be the one code that his department actually has a say in - is a disaster zone, even though it ticks all the transformation boxes, in terms of participants and employees.

Boxing South Africa is controlled by an act of parliament, with sport and recreation being the responsible department.

BSA has required bailouts totalling millions of rands to avoid bankruptcy, and still professional boxing is suffering.

Fighters have been starved of action because of the sport's blackout by SABC, which is the result of a legal battle over the ownership of TV rights.

Promoters, here and abroad, have owned TV rights since the goggle box was invented, but cash-hungry BSA - with the backing of Mbalula's department - suddenly decided they wanted in on the action.

SABC has stopped broadcasting until a looming court case is finalised. Its attempt in January to get the warring parties to talk appears to have failed.

Mbalula made a song and dance of bringing Floyd Mayweather to South Africa in January to kickstart his "Reawakening the Giant" initiative, supposedly aimed at restoring South African boxing to its glorious past.

I have questioned before in this column whether there is any substance to this programme. I've given up holding my breath.

Mbalula has successfully shown that government cannot administer a sport effectively.

Hopefully the new transformation target won't jeopardise those few wonderful things that happen to be right about SA sport.

Hopefully Swim SA can find a black Penny Heyns without a gun to its head.