South Africa - Long, long, long

In South Africa we have lots of willing runners but very few capable coaches. Our good marathon running is achieved buy lots of athletes doing lots of miles but not really understanding or knowing how to approach the quality workouts.

There are a few exceptions Sepeng / Muladauzi / cragg / ramaala / hoff, but they all received specialised coaching from a young age and came from track backgrounds.

Also prize money is avilable for most road races and by comparison there is hardly any for track races. Track races require sponsorship, at least with road running if you have 1000 entrants you can afford to hold the race and pay prize money from the entry fees.

Road races also take place almost every weekend, whereas track races although they do take place, they are few and far between and are normally very low profile.

We are missing good quality meetings to put good track times on the board.

They lack to understand how world athletics works. Where track and field is the nurturing phase of great athletes, however they do get some good athletes they could produce allot more. Their engrained racism at the top of team selection to even the sponsors maintains the heart of their problems.

The corruption financially, racial inequality and main focus on putting money into road running destroys nearly all good juniors. If they just focused on support of talent no matter how small they could be a nation as good as Kenya or Ethiopia if not better.

Good points!

Looking at the stats and taking into account the success at 800m there must be massive untapped potential at 5k/10k within the country. The 5k NR is very poor at 13'14 compared to the marathon times and depth.

There is and always has been but they need to keep this talent in the country to achieve.You can just look around the world about black and white athletes abroad,and this talent is not just in athletics. RSA NEED to remember one countries loss is is another countries gain but a lost tallent due to circumstance is a tradgedy and a waste.

They are used to run from lions. For the lions 5 km are pretty easy.

Problem is these athletes need to be good enough to leave in the first place - We have not produced a world class 1500 - 5000m athlete in the last 15+ years - with the exception of Shardrack Hoff (who with the right guidance had the talent to challenge the worlds best) and Alistair Cragg whose exploits for Ireland are making headlines all over the world....

Also lets note that most of SA's best track athletes in the past 10 years have stayed in South Africa and compete for South Africa - South Africa actually does have a good record of retaining its athletes when they get good.

Lewleyn Herbert / Muludauzi / Sepeng / Cloete / Ramaala

Also we have no College system in SA like in the US or even an active enough club track system like the UK.

Unfortunately Japanses are not very good at running away from lions that's why two were eaten when they got out to take a photgraph with their arms around the lions neck...

Yes but its the dabuse and exploitation of their own athletes that is destroying the prospects of middle distance athletes

I dont think that is neccessarily true

They dont get a chance to abuse them in the first place the money gets abused a long time before it reaches any agents or athletes. South African Athletics reputation for not spending money properly is getting around, and although I have never seen their books I would love to see their financial statements and the relevant audit report. Lots of officials not as many athletes.

Most of SA's top athletes are managed by foreign agents in any case, at least the ones who make a living out of athletics.

I agree about the corruption I remember when I was a 15 year old and there were a few training camps offered to a few athletes whom were thought to have potential

We went on 2 of these(all races black white indian coloured etc)then the remainder where cancelled(due to lack of funds) and the athletics admin guys all of a sudden had brand new cars not a good small run araound brand new out the box 7 series bmws and in SA 12 -13 years ago that was a lot of money

This one just one of many incidents which force many young athletes to give up running this and the fact when you were competing in a under 15 event and there was a few guys claiming to be 15 and were actually 19 - 20 years old.

To fully understand the running background of South African athletics, one would need to understand the complexity of the country's past racial structures.

Road running in South Africa was the first non racially encouraged sport. Track was the domain of the Universities, where athletes received educational bursaries according to their athletic ability.

The 2 big mining companies, mainly President Brand and President Steyn, were the first to encourage top class black runners to join them. This in a way became a running bursary with most of the top athletes of the time coming from the mines. Many many wannabe runners joined the mines and from this each mine would have 20 athletes of calibre.

The other mines clicked onto this as a way of getting workers and road running benefitted.

Track races paid their mainly white competitors under the table for performances and so grew the gap between road and track.

Track was seen as an area that didn't offer prize money and road offered prize money.

WIth the closure of the mines' teams, other clubs have formed but these only concentrate on the top athletes, so there isn't an emergence of athletes coming through in the same way.

Under the new ASA structure, the new guard removed the word amateur and paid themselves salaries, money which should have been used for development and National events was now going into wages. The sponsors that were involved with the sport previously didn't approve of the mismanagement of the sport and withdrew, this in itself gave the athletes less opportunity to run at a high level all in one event.

Politics clouded the development further and the sport is struggling to go forward with momentum. Incredibly during this period athletes have still emerged, Jacques Freitag is one, however there is a new lad on the block who came from a program called the Helderberg Sports Academy, his name is Ramsey Carelse and he jumped 2.30 in the High Jump at Oudtshoorn on the weekend.

So, hopefully, there are further rough diamonds to be discovered and in the process those in charge of the sport actually earn the salaries they claim by developing the sport.

Seems a real shame that despite teh fact that athletics (road running really) was one of the first sports to embrace racial equality it hasnt had any of the success that rugby and soccer have.

DeLima wrote:

Seems a real shame that despite teh fact that athletics (road running really) was one of the first sports to embrace racial equality it hasnt had any of the success that rugby and soccer have.

actually the only sport to be as successful as running internationally in the past has been professional boxing, where they have enjoyed a glut of world champions.

Rugby won the WC95 on home ground and soccer the African Cup on home ground, with tourney favourites Nigeria being banned. Since then they have not achieved a great deal more, other than the rugby having a record run under Mallett and winning the Tri-nations this year.

On the international stage running has had its successes. Meyer a silver in 1992, the same year Mtolo won New York. Thugwane taking Olympic marathon Gold, with Spend silver over 800m.

Throw in the medals of Herbert, Mulaudzi, Cloete, Freitag, Johan Botha it isn't all doom and gloom.

Sadly the infrastrutcure has been allowed to stagnate, with road running being one of the best structures in the world, to something which has stood still for the last, almost 10 years.

Political infighting has damaged the cause and yet they have still managed to win team medals at cross country, the last Paris World Champs Marathon, the 21K Gold Medal and the occasional relay medals on the international stage.

No where near the same quality and expectation as when SA first re-emerged onto the international arena in 92, but something to rebuild on.

SA athletics has a new General Manager in the form of Linda Ferns and hopefully they can go forward now.