Sport Matters

London here we come... Sulette Damons celebrates her goal with teammate Nicolene Terblanche (20) during the 2012 Olympic hockey qualifying tournament's final match against India. Congratulations are in order for the South African women’s hockey team after they won an international qualifying tournament for 2012 Olympics. The significance of their victory is that there is no longer any doubt about their mettle as the squad prepare to participate in the London Olympics later this year. Even more remarkable is that the SA ladies earned their right in fine style, hammering tournament host India 5-2 in the final match. The tournament was held in New Delhi, and that the SA team won in front of a hostile crowd bears testimony to their mental resolve apart from their inch-perfect physical conditioning. The team had already qualified, through the African qualifying tournament. But the Olympic sports organization in South Africa, Sascoc, ordered the ladies to play and qualify throu

South African soccer is numb with shock from its fallen fortunes, despite the best resources the game enjoys in Africa’s biggest economy. The victory of Zambia in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations has, to a great extend, highlighted how we have fallen behind in Africa’s pecking order. I subscribe to the argument that the ills of South African football will be healed by a strong domestic league. And that strength must immediately translate to competiveness on the continent. It is therefore imperative for Orlando Pirates and Black Leopards up the ante in the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup respectively. Leopards had a stuttering start yesterday when they were held to a 1-1 draw in Polokwane by Motor Action from Zimbabwe. The Limpopo side now face an uphill in the second leg either in Harare where Motor Action are based, or in Mutare where the club play most of its home matches in the 10000-capacity Sakubva Stadium. Pirates today get a chance to set the tone for their

Rallying cry... Zambia's success in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations should be the foundation for Cosafa's quest to act big. The success of Zambia in the Africa Cup of Nations needs to be consolidated and be used as a foundation to strengthen the bargaining power of Cosafa region in African football. The Cosafa leadership needs to call an urgent meeting, in Lusaka, to deliberate on the meaning of Zambia’s victory for the region, and for the organization. Judging by the chaos that transpired in the last gathering of Cosafa in Botswana in December 2011, when the presidential election was the major issue, the organization acted clumsily and disgracefully in addressing the matter at hand. It was disgraceful that interests of outsiders were entertained by the executives who were only concerned about preserving their positions. I am one of those who feel Suketu Patel does not have the clout to duel with the big boys in Africa’s soccer politics. However let the fact that Pat

Zambia is standing on the verge of a soccer history, which was delayed for nearly 20 years. In 1993 Zambia’s team, which is strongly believed to have been one of the most formidable national teams the continent of Africa has ever produced, crashed from the air off the coast of Gabon. On that fateful day on 27 April 1993 the squad were heading to Dakar, Senegal, for a 1994 World Cup qualifier. Their plane had made a brief stop at Gabonese captial of Libreville for refueling and other technical checks, before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on takeoff. The only survivors from that team were midfielders, Kalusha Bwalya and Charly Musonda, who were both based in Netherlands and Belgium respectively. Their circumstances for not being on the DHC-5 Buffalo plane are different. Bwalya, who at the time played for Ajax Amsterdam, had made his own arrangements to travel to Dakar, while Musonda could not travel to Lusaka to join his teammates due to injury. He was at the time playing fo

The best. . . Vivian Cheruiyot confidently poses with her Laureus awards trophy. Everybody knows Novak Djokovic, the hard-working No 1 tennis player in the world. So there was no surprise there when he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year winner on Monday. The female equivalent award went to Kenyan middle distance runner, Vivian Cheruiyot. “Chariot who,” many gasped in surprise and total ignorance of an excellent sportswoman of our times. The ignorance is annoying but can be understood in the positioning of sportswomen as sex symbols. At 28 Vivian is clearly not an upstart and surely not a late achiever as far as winning titles is concerned; she’s been at it since she was 15 when she took silver in the IAAF world cross country championships in 1999. A year later she won the gold in the same event in Vilamoura, Portugal. Cheruiyot has been the winner ever since and the past two years she just swept the boards, with 2011 being her crowning glory. That year she to

In the blood. . . Guinean-born Iya Traore is not your professional footballer in the conventional sense but as a Traore he sure has football genes, that's why he is the world champion of football freestyle! This has been a Cup of Nations and more, despite the absence of the top guns who I am not going to bore you by mentioning by name. Apart from the heroics of both host nations, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, fancy and outrageous hairstyles, and heart-warming efforts by the likes of Libya and Sudan, there is also the question of nationality. This aspect comes in different forms, namely: (a) players who were born outside of Africa, (b) the naturalization of players by Equatorial Guinea and (c) the distribution of certain west African surnames across several national teams in competition. Firstly, let’s look at point “c”, which was brought to my attention by a friend’s comment on the weekend while we were watching the Afcon games. He asked how come certain surnames appe