Swimming South Africa (SSA) on Tuesday unveiled a detailed battle plan aimed at winning medals at the 2028 and 2032 Olympics, but officials said the R85m price tag required government backing.
High performance manager Dean Price believes three to four medals are on the cards for the Los Angeles showpiece that is three years away, adding there has been an upsurge in talented swimmers.
There are 21 swimmers in the Olympic squad, 12 of whom have already swum the A-qualifying times that were in place for Paris last year.
“We know it’s going to get a little bit faster, a little bit tougher, but we’re in the ballpark. Three years before Paris we had four or five people; we couldn’t even put a relay team together,” he said after a press conference in Johannesburg.
“We’ve never had a group of swimmers like this ever.”
The blueprint includes a detailed training plan for the years ahead, with specific dates targeted for competitions so swimmers could show their progress.
They would also undergo testing.
The federation has a R10m sponsorship from the Bombela Concession Company as well as some support from the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) through its Operation Excellence programme, especially for the relays.
But SSA president Alan Fritz warned that crumbling municipal pools as well as recent budget cuts by the department of sport, arts and culture were a threat to the future of swimming, South Africa’s most successful Olympic sport since readmission at Barcelona in 1992.
Swimming has won three medals at a single Games on four occasions — at Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004, London 2012 and Rio 2016. Four or more would be a first.
Fritz said that of the nine public pools in Tshwane, not a single one was open, and this was a common scenario across the country.
“We can only host nationals in Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha],” he said, adding there were only three short-court facilities good enough to stage the national 25m championships, which are being held in Pietermaritzburg next week.
“We can’t even host an international event in terms of aquatics in this country, and that’s surely an indictment against all of us who live in this country.”
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