We’re still waiting for a new sport minister after Nathi Mthethwa’s dismal showing at the ANC elective conference last month, or if you prefer, last year.
Mthethwa is expected to be one of the casualties when President Cyril Ramaphosa gets around to his cabinet reshuffle. For now he’s keeping us in the dark.
But I’ll tell you two things: I’m not holding my breath that the next minister will be any better, and second, like the country’s electricity grid, sport is on the brink.
Rugby is at the helm of SA sport, both in terms of performance and popularity, and I reckon Siya Kolisi’s men have a good chance of joining New Zealand as the only teams to successfully defend the World Cup.
The odds on them winning in France at the end of the year are probably better than the Proteas winning their ODI World Cup or Bafana Bafana qualifying for the delayed Africa Cup of Nations next year.
For real excellence fans will need to look at the swimming world championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in July, where what I believe to be SA's greatest aquatics team of all-time will compete together.
Olympic champion Tatjana Schoenmaker will spearhead a talented outfit starring double Commonwealth Games champion Lara van Niekerk and her own stablemate, Kaylene Corbett, fifth in the 200m breaststroke at the Tokyo Games.
The trio have the potential to win medals in all three of the women’s breaststroke events. And then the men’s contingent of veteran Chad le Clos alongside Matthew Sates and Pieter Coetze will give the team a chance of matching, or possibly even beating, SA’s best haul of five medals, achieved in 2005 and 2013.
Fukuoka was the same city where Roland Schoeman won SA’s first-ever long-course world championship medal back in 2001, bronze in the 50m freestyle.
That ushered in a great era for SA swimming, capped with three medals at Athens 2004 and the world championship success in Melbourne the following year.
Schoenmaker, Corbett, Coetze and Van Niekerk all train in outdoor pools in Pretoria, where temperatures drop substantially in winter.
On paper the current crew could get close to 10 medals in Japan and could surpass the nation’s best Olympic haul, which stands at three, achieved on four occasions, in 1996, 2004, 2012 and 2016.
It’s no surprise swimming has been SA’s top-performing Olympic sport since readmission in 1992, with 16 gongs to the 14 of track and field (overall athletics leads swimming 28-20).
But load-shedding is a major complicating factor.
The temperature of the pool water needs to be reasonably high, at about 27ºC, for swimmers to train. That requires a pump and heater to be working properly.
Schoenmaker, Corbett, Coetze and Van Niekerk all train in outdoor pools in Pretoria, where temperatures drop substantially in winter.
If load-shedding persists through the year, they will have a problem. And given that we’ve started the year hovering between stages four and six, one has to wonder where we’ll be in winter.
Imagine how cold it’ll be come May and June. Once the water temperature gets too low, it’s not even worth diving into the pool because the swimmers won’t be able to execute their drills properly.
Running a generator to keep a pool heated is expensive, and swimming clubs might have to work together to get one pool running 24/7 to reduce costs, though training schedules could be a challenge.
Another option would be for the swimmers to base themselves overseas during winter.
That too is expensive and becomes problematic for those studying.
It’s hard to think of another sport so affected by load-shedding.
Electricity is SA’s greatest failure. It has the potential to sink a talented team and hurt the medal count at Paris 2024.
This is a serious problem, but given the inaction of government to tackle the hyacinth on Roodeplaat Dam ahead of the last Olympics, I’m not expecting this to even register on their radar.
A new minister? Expect the same ol’ same ol’ in 2023.
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