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Schoeman 'wants to pay bills'
Athens - South Africa's biggest Olympic star, Roland Schoeman, is still threatening to retire while the sport's boss, Sam Ramsamy, continues to look for incentives for the medal winners.
Ramsamy, chairperson of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa, says he hopes to make an announcement before the Games' closing ceremony on Sunday.
"I cannot continue to swim if I don't get financial support. I don't ask for the millions our rugby players get, but I want to know I can pay my bills at the end of the month," Schoeman said.
"I train about two and a half hours every morning. Then I have to sleep to recuperate and that's followed by a hard training session in the afternoon," Schoeman, the winner of a gold, silver and bronze medal, said.
Schoeman said if he had to lay awake at night worrying about where the money was going to come from to pay bills, he had no reason to continue and that's why he's considering retirement.
With sponsors' help, Nocsa made R1m available four years ago as a carrot for a gold medal. A silver medal was awarded with R500 000 and a bronze with R250 000.
If Schoeman had won then, he would have had R1m, but now he has nothing to show for all the hard work the past few years.
Schoeman would have had to share the R1m for the gold medal he won in the 4x100m freestyle relay, but with incentives for silver in the 100m freestyle and the bronze in the 50m freestyle, he would have netted R1m.
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