Sport Matters

In the mix. . . South African cross country champion Elroy Gelant. IT WAS a record field on Saturday when the SA cross country trials were held at the Boksburg Stadium. Favourite and SA Cross Country champion Elroy Gelant duling won the men’s 12km race, just he did in 2011 trials before he went on to win the national title at the SA championships. Unfortunately, this news remains unknown to most people in the country as the whole focus of the nation is in the ongoing 2013 Afcon tournament. There is nothing wrong with the focus being on the soccer tournament; it’s Africa’s major championship and it’s happening here in South Africa. The “minor” sports in South Africa always struggle for attention in mainstream media but a total blackout that was it last week ahead of the cross country trials is just not on. Cross country is an essential component of athletics; literally the grassroots. The code is the bedrock of Kenya’s supremacy in middle distance running. The trainers and a

The way it was. . . One of the stars of 1996 Phil Masinga doing what he did best, celebrating a goal! TWO days ahead of the 2013 Orange Africa Cup of Nations the mood in the host nation remains of despondency and dejection. Majority of South Africans still do not feel the tournament, not because they think is not worth supporting. The poor form of Bafana Bafana, the national team, is not inspiring. Not because the current coach appointed six months ago, Gordon Igesund, is doing badly. Curiously, people have more faith in him than his players. The football fans in South Africa are shocked by the rapid decline of Bafana, which gained momentum after the 2000 Afcon which was co-hosted by Ghana and Nigeria. South Africa finished third in that tournament, and what happened to the former winners at first attempt in 1996 afterwards is a storybook of disastrous planning and preparation. Bafana are in the tournament courtesy of their host status, this after failing to qualify for the

Strong presence. . . Mali's Adama Coulibaly is one of six players sharing his surname in the 2013 Afcon. NOW that the squads for the 16 teams which will be doing business in the 2013 Orange Africa Cup of Nations have been finalised, it is proper that interesting facts about the squads be closely scrutinised. The excitement is beginning to rise as the teams arrive this week ahead of the big kickoff on January 19, now just five days away. Here are some of the facts that emerged from 23-man squads of each national team: Like in the past editions, the South African, known as the Premier Soccer League, is providing the bulk of the players – 25. The breakdown is as follows: 1 in Ghana squad, 2 in Togo, 2 in Niger, 5 in Zambia and 15 in South African team, Bafana Bafana. Ethiopia has the highest number of players drawn from the team’s own national league – 20. (Cote d’Ivoire has the least – 1, third choice keeper Ali Badra Sangare from Academie Ivoire.) Africa has pr

The real thing. . . Moroccan Harite Gabari rides the Sahara dunes in his country. Gabari is competing in this year's Dakar Rally, in South America. In the past Morocco was one of the Dakar hosts in Africa. It’s a misnomer that the Dakar Rally is taking place in South America. Not because there is anything wrong with that part of the world, it’s a beautiful place judging by the TV footage of the event. My gripe is that it is the fifth year now that the Dakar Rally has been taken away from Africa, its original home, for security reasons and that the countries it traversed, as well as the African Union, have been silent. I trawled the internet looking for statements I might have missed in the news, about Africa expressing the tragedy of losing this iconic motorsport   event, and maybe a promise of fixing all that took the event away. There was nothing. Quiet, like the Sahara, the spiritual home of the Dakar Rally.   At this rate, it is adequate to conclude that as far as Af

Lonely. . . A soccer fan cuts a lonely figure at the Free State during the 2009 Fifa Confederations Cup. It can't get worse for the 2013 Afcon starting in two weeks' time. EVEN after the Bafana Bafana squad was named earlier this week there is still no sense that the host nation for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations is excited about the tournament. This adds to the gloomy picture about the slow ticket sales in South Africa, which begs the question: “Do South Africans really want to host the Afcon?” The tournament starts in 16 days from today, and still, the tickets bought for the kickoff match in the 94 000-seater FNB Stadium are still below 50 000. Ticket sales for other matches on the opening weekend do not even deserve a mention at this stage. Two factors relevant to South African psyche can be used to explain this apparent lack of interest in the tournament in this country. Firstly, the tickets could have been going slowly because people were more concerned about