South African medal winners at the Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro will receive cash rewards that could total as much as R10-million. Telecommunications giant Telkom announced yesterday it was channelling R4-million to the medal incentive fund and another R4-million to the teams that will compete at the showpiece later this year.The rest of the fund would be topped up by the Sport and Recreation Department and the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, said Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy.Sascoc paid R10-million in bonuses to Olympic and Paralympic athletes after the London 2012 Games.This time the total prize pool would be split evenly between the Olympics and Paralympics before being divided between their medallists, said Reddy.Team SA is expected to deliver its best Olympic performance since readmission into international sport.The Paralympic squad, however, might not reproduce its past glories now that swimmer Natalie du Toit has retired and sprinter Oscar Pistorius, who is awaiting sentencing for murder, is not allowed to compete.The occasion at the Telkom head office in Centurion, near Pretoria, could not escape references to the parastatal's Boltspeed branding campaign for its fibre-optic product, which was launched soon after Wayde van Niekerk won the 400m crown at the World Championships last year.With Anaso Jobodwana also taking bronze in the men's 200m in China, behind Usain Bolt and American Justin Gatlin, there had been some criticism of Telkom.Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula was tongue in cheek as he chastised Telkom yesterday."I'm happy we don't talk Boltspeed, we talk Caster Semenya speed and Wayde van Niekerk speed, Anaso Jobodwana speed and we're going to defeat Usain Bolt very soon so that we can be on those billboards of Telkom," he said.A Telkom official said the Boltspeed campaign had been planned long before the World Championships, and that the decision to sponsor the South African team to Rio was made before the campaign was launched.It has been nearly four years since SA's rowers won their Olympic gold medal, but the federation has its first major corporate sponsor.Rand Merchant Bank is launching three television adverts using the same foursome who stunned the world at London 2012.Matthew Brittain came out of retirement to temporarily rejoin forces with James Thompson, Sizwe Ndlovu and John Smith for the filming in March, at the team's base at Roodeplaat Dam, north of Pretoria, and at their high-altitude camp at Katse Dam in Lesotho...