Athletics SA's administrative bungling getting noticed abroad

Athletics South Africa’s bungling at home is getting noticed abroad‚ although it was poor Wayde van Niekerk who had to field a question about why the nation had not qualified a men’s 4x100m relay team for the world championships in London.

A journalist at the Diamond League press conference in Lausanne on Wednesday asked Van Niekerk to explain how SA had no relay squad despite having five 100m runners between 9.9sec and 10.10.

That’s a good question indeed.

With that sort of firepower an SA team should be gunning for podium finishes‚ but the said media man was obviously unfamiliar with the operational methods of the national federation here.

In 2015 ASA appointed a coach with limited experience to handle the relay at the world championships in Beijing‚ and the team dropped the baton at the first handover.

In 2016 ASA tried to assemble a squad too late into the season‚ by which time athletes were deep into their training and racing schedules‚ and they were unable to qualify a team for the Rio Olympics.

This year they scheduled the national championships on the same weekend as the World Relays in Bahamas‚ a qualifying event in London.

ASA wanted the top athletes to do the relays‚ but the athletes opted to compete at the SA competition using the hashtag #FillUpPotch.

To date‚ the top sprinters have not been free at the same time to run in the same relay qualification efforts.

Co-ordinating the relay is an administration task‚ but yesterday the question was thrown at Van Niekerk.

“How do I explain that?” the Olympic 400m champion initially responded.

“I guess we as a country haven’t had the opportunities that we’d like and I think we just need to find a way to gel and find some chemistry and get to know each others’ schedules …

“There’s been too many clashes to when we can run as a team together because obviously it’s an individual sport and everyone is really focused on qualifying and getting themselves in the major competitions.

“But it’s really out of my control.”

Many athletes are still trying to qualify for London before the window closes on July 23.

But that task is more difficult for South African track and field competitors because ASA is imposing qualifying criteria tougher than those stipulated by the IAAF‚ the world governing body for the sport.

So far 19 athletes have met ASA’s standards‚ but another 17 are in no man’s land‚ having attained the IAAF criteria‚ meaning they must still battle for selection instead of priming themselves for London.

- TimesLIVE