Athens - South Africa's Olympians may compete for just honour and country
at the 2004 Athens Olympics. No incentive scheme has been put in
place for medal winners as the clock ticks towards the opening
ceremony at the Olympic Stadium next Friday.
No incentive scheme had been finalised by Friday, according to
the SA Olympic team Chef de Mission Hajera Kajee. "We are still
looking at an incentive scheme for medals," she said. "Nothing is
in place yet. We are waiting for our partners (sponsors) to come
through."
South Africa's 106 athletes at the Athens Olympics would be
interested to know whether to gear themselves up for cash bonuses
for medals, especially after the team to Sydney 2000 were offered
R1m for gold, R500 000 for silver and R250 000 for bronze.
Kit sponsors Adidas came to the party in terms of clothing and
shoes on Friday as the SA team streamed through their Athens
headquarters at the Politia Tennis Club in the exclusive northern
suburbs to be kitted out.
"This kit is absolutely amazing," enthused women's hockey
captain Susan Webber. "We think it's Christmas with all the kit
they gave us. Our playing kit especially, is superb."
Driver got lost
The handout, that included two pairs of top-of-the-range
training shoes each and a wardrobe-load of casual and training
wear, made up for a hectic start to their Friday as their bus
driver got lost on the one hour trip to their training ground.
"As things turned out, we ended up training for about 15
minutes, so it was a bit of a waste," said Kerry Bee, the
most-capped player in the women's squad. "We had to get out to the
Adidas site for our kit to be first in line because we had to rush
back for our warmup friendly against New Zealand in the afternoon."
Chief medical officer Wayne Derman revealed on Friday that world
high jump champion Jacques Freitag had left for the Weltklasse
meeting in Zurich on Friday morning after having recovered from an
upper respiratory infection.
"The reason Jacques stayed behind was because we feared that he
might have infected the other athletes. He's been treated by our
medical team back home and he's been given an all-clear to compete
in Zurich."
Freitag has fully recovered
Freitag, who recovered from a serious ankle injury in time to
make the Olympic team, joined Hestrie Cloete, 800m runners Hezekiel
Sepeng and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, Llewellyn Herbert and Frantz Kruger
for the IAAF showpiece in Zurich and will arrive with them in
Athens over the weekend.
The athletes meanwhile enthused about their facilites in the
Olympic Village, especially the training grounds and the top of the
line gymnasium.
Derman was especially impressed with the medical technology
available in the village and the Olympic city.
"Our technical support includes an ultra sound machine for the
imaging of tissues, a bio feedback machine to measure the
alfa-rhythm of brain waves to assist in relaxation methods for our
athletes between training and performances and software that
enables us to conduct imaging studies and which are given
digitally. This we get on an e-film which we can feed directly back
to our medical team in South Africa for assessments.
Ice baths for deep muscle recovery
"There's a rehabilitation gym on site and a setup that includes
ice baths for deep muscle recovery and chilly-jumpers with ice
pockets that the athletes can use to keep their temperature down
between competition in the hot conditions."
Derman said that dope testing could take place at any moment.
"We need to know where the athletes are at all times in case Wada
officials pitch up for drug testing. They have told us of urine and
blood testing."
Kajee said that since landing in Athens on Tuesday, work had
been non-stop amongst her technical and logistics staff. "We have
been focusing on making our athletes as comfortable as possible.
There have been many technical and logistical arrangements to be
finalised in the leadup to the opening ceremony."
On Saturday the team will be officially welcomed to the Olympic
Village where the national flag will be raised followed by a
welcome speech from the Olympic Village mayor.
Nocsa president Sam Ramsamy was expected to have arrived by
Saturday morning and negotiations should then get to an advanced
stage with Nocsa's list of sponsors for medal incentives for the
athletes.
