Ageing sports stars need a push from their coach

The wizard arrives today. Hopefully he has a head for heights, which will help as he drives over Letele's Pass in northern Lesotho, which winds and grinds its way to 3198m above sea level.

The magician is Gianni Postiglione, a veteran rowing coach who has previously helped the South African team.

He joins them at their altitude camp at Katse Dam at the request of Roger Barrow - the young mentor at the helm of SA rowing - who has produced crews winning Olympic and World Championship gold medals.

There are just 300 senior rowers in South Africa, yet Barrow has created a squad system that is world class.

The key, he reiterated over dinner on Monday night, is his system of forcing the rowers to compete for seats in a boat.

James Thompson and John Smith won the men's lightweight double sculls at the World Championships a few months back, but Sizwe Ndlovu is the third man bidding for a seat in that boat.

Come the next World Championships next year, or the 2016 Olympics, the two fastest rowers will make the boat.

There will be no room for sentimentality.

Barrow admits he learned that the hard way a few years ago, when he protected the ageing Ramon di Clemente from younger oarsmen vying for his seat.

Di Clemente and Donovan Cech won SA's first-ever Olympic rowing medal, a bronze at the 2004 Games in Athens.

Di Clemente persevered beyond the 2008 Olympics - after Cech had retired - and Barrow was initially happy to keep him.

But once the coach realised that Di Clemente was not better than the youngsters he was keeping out, he took the difficult decision to boot out the local legend.

It's a funny thing how ageing sports heroes can't see that they're over the hill; it's as if their greatness created a blind spot, blocking out the horrifying image in the rearview mirror of Father Time bearing down on them.

Bakkies Botha was praised for the manner in which he announced his retirement from Test rugby at the weekend, but in what universe had he been better than Eben Etzebeth in the past few years?

Quitting at the right time is a universal problem for sports stars across all codes, and I fear that there might be a few too many pensioners in the Springbok team come the 2015 World Cup.

There's no guarantee that Jean de Villiers or Victor Matfield won't become the next John Smit.

My theory is that youth possesses an iron will that can absorb most pain. But it rusts with age.

Jan Bergman was still near the summit of his career when he challenged Jawaid Khaliq for the IBO welterweight title more than a decade ago.

The South African left-hook specialist dropped the champion early on, but the Englishman got up and put Bergman down.

Their bout quickly turned into a war. Midway Bergman went down again, blood pouring from a cut on his eye.

Bergman was counted out, opting to stay down because of the red waterfall.

That's when I knew he had lost his iron will.

A hungry young stallion in Bergman's position would have jumped up, showing he wanted to go on. He would have left it up to the referee or ringside doctor to stop the contest.

Bergman afterwards insisted he had plenty of fight in him, and he did box on, but without causing ripples.

I realised then that there's nothing we critics can say to convince a fading hero that he's over the hill.

That's the role of the coach. Sport could use more like Barrow.