We all know the one they call the Blade Runner or 400m-sensation Oscar Pistorius. He’s transformed the Paralympics into a global showpiece. Now, a new generation of disabled people dreams of competing at the Paralympics.
Golf has been included in the Olympic Games for 2016. Disabled golfers have set their sights on Paralympic inclusion in Rio in the same year. There’s just one problem—there’s no international disabled golfing body. The South African Disabled Golf Association (SAGDA) is fighting to get this code included on the world stage.
And SAGDA has one very powerful asset. His name is Daniel Slabbert.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1207" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_0136-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
He wanted to be a professional golfer—he was young and talented. But when he was 14, a playful afternoon jumping on a trampoline ended in devastation. He caught the trampoline off balance and severed the tendons and major arteries in his left leg above the knee. His leg was amputated.
The accident would have left many an individual pondering a bleak future, but Slabbert—he was back swinging a golf club in little over 12 weeks—recalls the brief transition from recovery to playing again.
“Three months later, I came home with a prosthetic. Not long after that, I dusted off my clubs. It was a pretty slow process, but soon I was hitting it as well as ever. Being able to pick up a club and play competitive golf again not only saved my sanity, it gave me purpose,” says Slabbert.
Well, the purpose Slabbert speaks of has gained much greater significance. Last year, he won his maiden Nedbank SA Disabled Open by two strokes. This year, he defended his title; this time, by a whopping 17 shots. The victory is significant, but the margin of his win is even more important. In Slabbert, South Africa possesses a potential world champion.
The head of SAGDA, Eugene Vorster, echoes this sentiment.
“I’m talking to him [Slabbert] regularly and the guys at the high performance program at Tuks [University of Pretoria] are saying he’s showing great promise on an amateur level to reach the highest level, which in South Africa is quite tough.”
Vorster explains how Slabbert’s new prosthetic has made a huge difference to his game, but ultimately his attitude will determine his success.
“With technology, with a better leg, it will help. What is exciting about Daniel is that his heart is in the right place and so is his head.”
One of the major barriers, says Vorster, to getting disabled golf to the Paralympics is money.
“Especially for us, as South Africans, for us to become international players is going to be a long journey. Compare our costs with players overseas—it costs our guys a lot more. There are a few challenges, but as is the case with able-bodied golfers, disabled South African golfers are close to the best in the world.”
One of the first showcase events for SAGDA will come at the R2 million ISPS HANDA South African Match Play Championship at Zwartkop Country Club in October. Disabled golfers and able-bodied professionals will play at the same event.
The point of such an event, says Midori Miyazaki, the executive director of international affairs for ISPS, is exposure.
“Paralympics is a big, big mission. To get golf in there is a long way to go, but I think one of the things we can do is to let people know that golf can be played by the disabled and actually change their lives. The exposure through the Sunshine Tour, through the professional golfers, their backing, it helps a huge amount,” says Miyazaki.
Vorster says the tournament will act as a stepping stone.
“We’re aiming first at getting that lucrative international professional tour and then Paralympic inclusion. Wouldn’t it be great, like the wheelchair basketball players, to have an international professional tour.”

Golfer Drives Hard For  Paralympic Chance

Ten years is a long wait, especially when you’re 42. It seems even longer when you’re a professional golfer. When you’re one of the former elite golfers in the world, it’s a lifetime. That’s how long it has been since Ernie Els’ last major triumph, in 2002.
It was said he was done, that he should hang up his clubs. It’s a good thing Ernie Els wasn’t listening, or maybe he was.
The birdie, courtesy of a beautiful silky putting stroke at the 72nd hole, was the final flourish. It meant he won by a stroke in the British Open at Royal Lytham &amp; St Annes on July 22 to become a four-time major champion.
The overnight leader, Australian Adam Scott, stole most of the headlines, as he let a four-shot lead slip in the final round, with four consecutive bogies in a stunning collapse. Yet it was Els, who had been on the wrong end of a denouement several times before, who was rewarded for a breath-taking performance.
“In March I looked like an absolute fool,” Els said with hesitation in his voice, alluding to a number of tournaments being thrown away from a winning position earlier in the year.
<div id="attachment_1200" style="width: 195px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1200" class="size-medium wp-image-1200" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/110564455_10-185x300.jpg" alt="" width="185" height="300" />Ernie Els of South Africa with his son Ben who suffers from Autism enjoying time on the course during the Els for Autism Pro-am at The PGA National Golf Club on March 21, 2011 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)</div>
“People were laughing at me and making jokes about me and really hitting me low, saying I’m done and I should hang it up. So to come through and make a putt like that and make pressure putts on the back nine, that was the whole goal. That was the whole thing. Going through all the different feelings and processes&#8230; So to sit here with it (he points to the trophy) now is quite satisfying.”
Els, in combination with visual skills and performance coach, Sherylle Calder, turned around his game. He had not won anywhere since the South African Open in December 2010 and many thought he had passed his sell-by date.
Together with Calder, Els completely reworked the way he approached his putting—which had been his Achilles’ heel in his winless streak—to produce a confident and winning stroke. Calder has coached everyone from the All Blacks rugby team to the South African cricket team in improving their hand-eye coordination.
“When you’ve been where I was, you have no confidence in putting, you don’t want to have that one coming back. It comes from retraining your whole outlook on putting. And that’s why I started working with Sherylle, just changed the whole thing, mind-set, training, everything. And I was really going from a totally different angle, which I liked, because I tried everything else.”
Els, since winning that last major a decade ago, learned that his young son, Ben, aged 10, has autism. Digesting that news alone seemed to have an effect on his game and the wins dried up after 2010 as Els entered his 40s.
Els said it wasn’t easy to live up to his nickname—The Big Easy.
“Yeah, well, that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? This game is a tough game we play. It’s a physical game. It’s a mental game. You’ve got to have your wits with you, otherwise you have a missing link and it doesn’t quite all come together. So to play the game as long as I have, for 23 years now as a professional, you’re bound to go through every emotion out there and most of the things happen to you.”
The former world-number one believed that his changed attitude was the deciding factor.
“I’ve done what Adam has done before. Just about everything that can happen in the game of golf, I’ve gone through. So to come through all that and sit here and speak to you guys with the Claret Jug is crazy. And it comes from a good attitude, yeah, being a bit more relaxed and believing in yourself.”
Els turns back to his son, and how he thought of him during the final round to help him achieve the win.
“I made a lot of putts with Ben in mind today, because I know Ben’s watching. He loves when I hit golf balls. He’s always there. He comes with me. He loves the flight of the ball and the sound. I know he was watching today, and I was trying to keep him—because he gets really excited. I wanted to keep him excited today, so I made a lot of putts for him today.”
Els admitted he has lost more often in his career than he has won, but that he could always feel the difference all was well&#8230;
“It’s amazing this game, you know. You have a positive feel; you give yourself positive vibes, sometimes positive things happen. And I think I’ve been in such a negative mode for a while, and now that I’m starting to feel more positive, obviously things happen, especially on the back nine where I haven’t really done the job.”
Els also explained how he felt he had to thank former President Nelson Mandela for the encouragement he had given him during his career—especially the early parts of the 1990s.
“If I win, I told myself, I’d better thank President Mandela because I grew up in the era of apartheid and then changing into the democratic era, and President Mandela was right there. And right after the change, I was the first one to win a major.”
“And so there’s a lot of significance there in my life, from the change from that and then President Mandela becoming president and me winning a golf tournament. And then him getting on the telephone with him talking to me when I was in Pittsburgh, Oakmont [the 1994 US Open]. So in a way we intertwined together in a crazy way. And I just felt he’s been so important for us being where we are today as a nation and as sports people.”
Els has now come full-circle, from promising major-winning talent, to the also ran, to the comeback kid. The Big Easy is back and ready to win again.

Ernie, Who Els?

One name was in the head of Cameron van der Burgh amid the lights, screaming and chaos at the poolside—that of his friend, Norwegian world champion swimmer, Alexander Dale Oen. Just a few months before, Dale Oen was altitude training in Arizona, in the States, looking forward to winning gold medals in London. On April 30, the 26-year-old collapsed and died from a rare heart complaint.
“We were friends and I was training to beat him when he died and it almost felt like he left something with me that helped me with my journey. As you can see, at the end of the race there is a picture [of me] pointing to the sky in his honor. It was relief that I was able to achieve what I wanted to do with the help of someone to look after me. I felt I was swimming with him,” says van der Burgh during a visit to FORBES AFRICA in Sandton.
“I would always go fast, so in the second 50 meters, I would fatigue. Alex was always very fast in the second 50 and so was I in this race. I could almost feel maybe this guy was smiling down on me afterwards… When I got home that night I looked at the medal and reflected. It is like you have to study for four years for one final exam, lasting 58 seconds, if you fail you go back to day one. I was very lucky to be on the other end of the scale.”
<div id="attachment_1199" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1199" class="size-medium wp-image-1199" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149537322_10.jpg.-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Swimming: 2012 Summer Olympics: South Africa Cameron van der Burgh victorious after winning gold with world record time of 58.46 seconds during Men&#8217;s 100M Breaststroke Final at Aquatics Centre. London, United Kingdom 7/29/2012 CREDIT: Peter Read Miller (Photo by Peter Read Miller /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X155279 TK5 R1 F131 )</div>
Van der Burgh, born-and-bred in Pretoria, South Africa, is the grandson of a Karoo farmer and probably one of the most polite and unassuming world champions you will ever meet. You wouldn’t bat an eyelid if you saw him cleaning his dad’s pool in the Pretoria suburbs. He is also a man who believes in home; he turned down offers from Australia to become the first-ever world swimming champion to be trained in Africa. Along with his fellow South African gold medalist, Durban-based swimmer, Chad le Clos, he believes their win could boost swimming in South Africa.
“We have shown the country that swimming is worth investing in. There is a lot of money out there and I am sure the guys in rugby and cricket will be complaining because we will be taking money away from their sports,” he says.
On the face of it, van der Burgh is the consummate narrow-eyed sport professional. Since the age of 11, days when he beat all-comers easily, without training, his cellphone PIN has been 2-0-1-2, his year for the Olympics. By the age of 16, he was losing heart and could have tossed it all away if it hadn’t been for a painful freak accident.
It was the South African national championships in Durban and van der Burgh hadn’t made the finals and was beginning to wonder if he ever would. Instead of tearing through the pool he was out of it and messing around with a mate on the high diving board.
“I jumped once and it was OK, the second time I was wet. There were big banners saying don’t jump off the diving board. I got to the top of the stairs, my foot slipped; I fell three meters onto the tiles and broke my ankle. Boys will be boys,” he says.
“Three months and two operations later I was recovering when I saw all my mates were training away and I wasn’t even able to jump into the water. It was then I decided to push myself further.”
It wasn’t easy. For four years, training began at 8am, with grueling hours in the pool and gym, followed by a massage until 6pm.
“It is a hard life. It is a lonely sport with lots of sacrifices. I do get lonely,” he says.
The fruit of this labor has been crazy days, far from lonely, with people drawn to him like flowers to the sun. On the eve of the semi-final he had to switch off Twitter because 10,000 messages a night were keeping him awake. People have asked him to sign their arms and legs; one man asked him to attend his child’s birthday party. You can be sure more than a few South Africans will name their children Cameron. He was also amused by entering the gold medal club.
“Gold medalists like Phelps are in their own world and they don’t talk to you. I noticed, the day after I won, that they nod to me now,” he says.
The man himself can’t wait to go surfing in Jeffreys Bay, off the east coast of South Africa. He learned how to surf three years ago and says he is very good at paddling.
The future lies in financial management, which van der Burgh is studying through the University of South Africa (UNISA). He has already invested in a company offering accounting services to the mining industry.
In January, he will begin training for the 2016 Olympics, which he is sure will be his last.
“I want to go back and win the medal. So then I have done my job and can haul my togs up. I see it like a gladiator—after you have finished your job you can live and you can be proud,” he says.
Africa will be proud too.

The Golden  Gladiator

With just hours to go, the prevailing mood in Britain was hardly celebratory. On streets washed by rain, the number of tourists in London’s capital seemed below the average for the time of year. The last minute preparations were far from frenzied and all that anyone was certain of was that the opening ceremony involved live sheep.
But then the brutal cynicism that greets every major event in Britain was washed away by an event that left many around the world scratching their heads. The spectacular, which included dancing nurses, engineers, Shakespeare, James Bond and a cameo from the Queen, was a satisfying antidote to the blanket corporate sponsorship that had alienated many Londoners ahead of the games.
<div id="attachment_1187" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1187" class="size-medium wp-image-1187" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149916643_10-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" />WINDSOR, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 02: Sizwe Ndlovu, John Smith, Matthew Brittain and James Thompson of South Africa celebrate winning the gold medal for the Lightweight Men&#8217;s Four final on on Day 6 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Eton Dorney on August 2, 2012 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)</div>
The ceremony—which saw a celebration of the National Health Service, the industrial revolution and modern day British multiculturalism—combined wit, elegance and a theatricality. It confounded a widespread belief in the country that the event would be an expensive and embarrassing disaster.
A security fiasco, which saw G4S, the lead contractor, admit with weeks to go, that it had not hired enough staff to man the games, saw the army drafted in to run X-ray scanners and patrol the venues. Last minute problems on some of the major routes into London raised fears of transport chaos, but, though the infrastructure creaked under the weight of the additional hundreds of thousands of users, it held—just.
Even the weather, which had appeared apocalyptic, from March through to July, turned. The ceaseless rain gave way to fierce sunshine as summer smiled—although the hailstorms did return to add spice to the cycling road race.
The early stages were not encouraging for African teams. Nigerian slalom kayak hopeful, Johny Akinyemi, fell at the first hurdle, accumulating too many penalties in his two runs in the K1 event and failing to reach the semi-finals.
The Nigerian basketball team, which qualified at the eleventh hour for their first appearance at an Olympic Games, showed some promise, but came up against a rampant USA ‘Dream Team’, who notched up an Olympic record winning spread of 156-73. One of the country’s two individual medalists from the Beijing Olympics in 2008—Chika Chukwumerije—had to wait until close to the end of the event to try to better his bronze in the +80kg Taekwondo.
<div id="attachment_1185" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1185" class="size-medium wp-image-1185" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/150115672_10-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 10: Meseret Defar of Ethiopia celebrates as she crosses the finish line ahead of Jepkemoi Jepkemoi Cheruiyot of Kenya and Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 5000m Final on Day 14 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 10, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)</div>
Not that it mattered—London’s large Nigerian community has been vocal in its support of its team. A three day conference saw ministers and some of the country’s leading businesspeople gather in the Dorchester Hotel, while around town other delegations turned up to show off their country’s investment opportunities.
Juliano Máquina, Mozambique’s light-flyweight boxing hopeful, was soundly beaten by a clinical Aleksandar Aleksandrov, the Bulgarian took apart the Olympic debutant over the three rounds to win on points 22-7. Thomas Essomba, from Cameroon, the other African fancied in the weight category, put in a solid first round win, but failed to make the quarter finals, beaten by the Northern Irishman Paddy Barnes.
South Africa picked up some early successes in and on the water. The South African men’s lightweight four picked up a gold in the rowing, while Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos were the surprise winners in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m butterfly, respectively. The latter, saw le Clos beat the world’s best—the American, Michael Phelps—by a fingernail, and made a hero of his father, Burt le Clos, whose hoarse and emotional post-swim interview with BBC quickly went viral.
As the first week drew to a close, it was only South Africans who had made it to the podium.
Hopes were boosted when the Kenyans arrived. With three Olympic champions—Pamela Jelimo, Brimin Kipruto and Asbel Kiprop—and four world champions—Vivian Cheruiyot, Ezekiel Kemboi, Edna Kiplagat and captain David Rudisha—named in their squad for the London games, there was no doubt the East Africans had come to win. Rudisha, an 800m runner, was set to follow in the footsteps of his father by participating in the 4x400m relay—the team’s pedigree crossed generations. In Beijing, Kenya was the highest ranking African country in the medal tables, taking six golds and 14 medals overall.
This time, they rejected the offer of a training base in Bristol, to the west of London, preferring to remain in Kenya to train at altitude right up to the last minute.
<div id="attachment_1189" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1189" class="size-medium wp-image-1189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149585173_10-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; JULY 31: Chad le Clos of South Africa celebrates after winning the gold in the Men&#8217;s 200m Butterfly final on Day 4 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on July 31, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)</div>
Cheruiyot was the first in action, taking on a strong field, including the Ethiopian Olympic champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, in the 10,000m final. In the end, it was the Ethiopian’s day, kicking ahead to win gold, with Cheruiyot trailing in third behind her compatriot Sally Kipyego.
It was the Ethiopians again who denied Kenya in the women’s marathon; Tiki Gelana beat Priscah Jeptoo by five seconds to claim gold in the thrashing rain.
The highly fancied men’s team fared even worse in the 10,000m. On home turf, the British runner, Mo Farah, took gold ahead of the American Galen Rupp and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele, with the Kenyans trailing outside of the medal positions. It was the first time since 1984 that an African runner had not won the event—although some were quick to claim Mogadishu-born Farah for the continent. In a rather ugly series of attacks in the run-up to the games, the right-wing press had railed against Britain’s foreign-born competitors using the epithet “plastic Brits”. Farah’s response was definitive. Having taken gold, a journalist asked him whether he would have preferred to have won the medal for Somalia.
“Look, mate,” Farah replied, “This is my country.”
The Kenyans had to wait until Sunday afternoon to finally break their duck, Ezekiel Kemboi, a policeman facing an assault charge back in his home country, stormed ahead in the last lap of the 3,000m steeplechase, after his compatriot, Brimin Kipruto, had fallen. At the end of the race, Kemboi announced that he would retire from the discipline to focus on the marathon.
Amongst the running contingent was Guor Marial, whose story captured the imagination of many in the international media in the run up to the games. Marial was one of four competitors who joined the parade of athletes underneath the Olympic flag. Three—Churandy Martina, Philip Elhage and Rodion Davelaar—are previous competitors from the Netherlands Antilles, which recently became a municipality of the Netherlands.
<div id="attachment_1188" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1188" class="size-medium wp-image-1188" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149771045_10-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 03: Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 10,000m Final on Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)</div>
Marial, in his first Olympics, was born in South Sudan, and turned down an offer from Khartoum to run for the north. Granted refugee status by the US when he was 16, the marathon runner lost many of his relatives in the vicious civil war that saw millions displaced. With South Sudan newly independent and lacking an organizing committee, the decision by officials to allow Marial a spot marks the first time an athlete from Africa’s 54th nation has been able to compete.
While stories like that of Marial have provided great examples of the redemptive power of sport, the event continues to raise questions about the ability of athletes from the continent to be able to make their mark. While the raw talent and commitment of African competitors has seen them dominate a few important sports in recent decades, the London games more than any other may have shown that top-level sport is becoming so clearly bifurcated between the haves and the have-nots. The dominance of the US and China in the medal tables showed that financial clout can be the difference between a victor and an also-ran.
The press fell in love with the stories of hardship and graft of willing amateurs like Hamadou Djibo Issaka, the rower from Niger who took up the sport only months before the games. He worked as a gardener and swimming pool attendant in Niamey and trained in an old fishing boat. The 35-year-old finished a distant last in the single sculls. While narratives like his provide great examples of the vaunted “Olympic Spirit”, they also highlight the vast discrepancies in resources. British rowers, who had one of their best years at home, are the product of a well-established network of training facilities, coaches, equipment and finance.
In the end, African hopes fell in the most part to domestic competitors, as British athletes, fired up by the support in London, won through in events that would normally be dominated by the continent’s finest.
Although much noise was made around the ‘Africa Village’ hospitality area about a potential bid by Durban for 2024, with no African countries on the shortlist for 2020, it will be more than a decade before anyone on the continent will be able to claim that home advantage.
<div id="attachment_1186" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1186" class="size-medium wp-image-1186" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149948438_10.jpg.-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Track &amp; Field: 2012 Summer Olympics: Kenya Ezekiel Kemboi victorious after winning Men&#8217;s 3000M Steeplechase Final gold at Olympic Stadium. London, United Kingdom 8/5/2012 CREDIT: John W. McDonough (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X155268 TK11 R1 F174 )</div>
Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, threw his country’s hat into the ring for a bid, reminding press that the country is not only home to some of the world’s greatest runners, elite athletes already flock to the high altitude training centres in Iten, in the Rift Valley. However, major international investment—and a change in international perceptions of the country, and the continent more broadly—would be needed for that bid to take off. It is unlikely to have been enhanced by the closure of the ‘Africa Village’ early due to unpaid debts, caused by the failure of many African Olympic committees to turn up and take out space.

From African Grit  To Plastic Brits

With just hours to go, the prevailing mood in Britain was hardly celebratory. On streets washed by rain, the number of tourists in London’s capital seemed below the average for the time of year. The last minute preparations were far from frenzied and all that anyone was certain of was that the opening ceremony involved live sheep.
But then the brutal cynicism that greets every major event in Britain was washed away by an event that left many around the world scratching their heads. The spectacular, which included dancing nurses, engineers, Shakespeare, James Bond and a cameo from the Queen, was a satisfying antidote to the blanket corporate sponsorship that had alienated many Londoners ahead of the games.
<div id="attachment_1187" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1187" class="size-medium wp-image-1187" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149916643_10-300x203.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="203" />WINDSOR, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 02: Sizwe Ndlovu, John Smith, Matthew Brittain and James Thompson of South Africa celebrate winning the gold medal for the Lightweight Men&#8217;s Four final on on Day 6 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Eton Dorney on August 2, 2012 in Windsor, England. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)</div>
The ceremony—which saw a celebration of the National Health Service, the industrial revolution and modern day British multiculturalism—combined wit, elegance and a theatricality. It confounded a widespread belief in the country that the event would be an expensive and embarrassing disaster.
A security fiasco, which saw G4S, the lead contractor, admit with weeks to go, that it had not hired enough staff to man the games, saw the army drafted in to run X-ray scanners and patrol the venues. Last minute problems on some of the major routes into London raised fears of transport chaos, but, though the infrastructure creaked under the weight of the additional hundreds of thousands of users, it held—just.
Even the weather, which had appeared apocalyptic, from March through to July, turned. The ceaseless rain gave way to fierce sunshine as summer smiled—although the hailstorms did return to add spice to the cycling road race.
<div id="attachment_1186" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1186" class="size-medium wp-image-1186" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149948438_10.jpg.-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Track &amp; Field: 2012 Summer Olympics: Kenya Ezekiel Kemboi victorious after winning Men&#8217;s 3000M Steeplechase Final gold at Olympic Stadium. London, United Kingdom 8/5/2012 CREDIT: John W. McDonough (Photo by John W. McDonough /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (Set Number: X155268 TK11 R1 F174 )</div>
The early stages were not encouraging for African teams. Nigerian slalom kayak hopeful, Johny Akinyemi, fell at the first hurdle, accumulating too many penalties in his two runs in the K1 event and failing to reach the semi-finals.
The Nigerian basketball team, which qualified at the eleventh hour for their first appearance at an Olympic Games, showed some promise, but came up against a rampant USA ‘Dream Team’, who notched up an Olympic record winning spread of 156-73. One of the country’s two individual medalists from the Beijing Olympics in 2008—Chika Chukwumerije—had to wait until close to the end of the event to try to better his bronze in the +80kg Taekwondo.
Not that it mattered—London’s large Nigerian community has been vocal in its support of its team. A three day conference saw ministers and some of the country’s leading businesspeople gather in the Dorchester Hotel, while around town other delegations turned up to show off their country’s investment opportunities.
Juliano Máquina, Mozambique’s light-flyweight boxing hopeful, was soundly beaten by a clinical Aleksandar Aleksandrov, the Bulgarian took apart the Olympic debutant over the three rounds to win on points 22-7. Thomas Essomba, from Cameroon, the other African fancied in the weight category, put in a solid first round win, but failed to make the quarter finals, beaten by the Northern Irishman Paddy Barnes.
South Africa picked up some early successes in and on the water. The South African men’s lightweight four picked up a gold in the rowing, while Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos were the surprise winners in the 100m breaststroke and the 200m butterfly, respectively. The latter, saw le Clos beat the world’s best—the American, Michael Phelps—by a fingernail, and made a hero of his father, Burt le Clos, whose hoarse and emotional post-swim interview with BBC quickly went viral.
<div id="attachment_1189" style="width: 215px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1189" class="size-medium wp-image-1189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149585173_10-205x300.jpg" alt="" width="205" height="300" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; JULY 31: Chad le Clos of South Africa celebrates after winning the gold in the Men&#8217;s 200m Butterfly final on Day 4 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre on July 31, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)</div>
As the first week drew to a close, it was only South Africans who had made it to the podium.
Hopes were boosted when the Kenyans arrived. With three Olympic champions—Pamela Jelimo, Brimin Kipruto and Asbel Kiprop—and four world champions—Vivian Cheruiyot, Ezekiel Kemboi, Edna Kiplagat and captain David Rudisha—named in their squad for the London games, there was no doubt the East Africans had come to win. Rudisha, an 800m runner, was set to follow in the footsteps of his father by participating in the 4x400m relay—the team’s pedigree crossed generations. In Beijing, Kenya was the highest ranking African country in the medal tables, taking six golds and 14 medals overall.
This time, they rejected the offer of a training base in Bristol, to the west of London, preferring to remain in Kenya to train at altitude right up to the last minute.
Cheruiyot was the first in action, taking on a strong field, including the Ethiopian Olympic champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, in the 10,000m final. In the end, it was the Ethiopian’s day, kicking ahead to win gold, with Cheruiyot trailing in third behind her compatriot Sally Kipyego.
It was the Ethiopians again who denied Kenya in the women’s marathon; Tiki Gelana beat Priscah Jeptoo by five seconds to claim gold in the thrashing rain.
The highly fancied men’s team fared even worse in the 10,000m. On home turf, the British runner, Mo Farah, took gold ahead of the American Galen Rupp and Ethiopia’s Tariku Bekele, with the Kenyans trailing outside of the medal positions. It was the first time since 1984 that an African runner had not won the event—although some were quick to claim Mogadishu-born Farah for the continent. In a rather ugly series of attacks in the run-up to the games, the right-wing press had railed against Britain’s foreign-born competitors using the epithet “plastic Brits”. Farah’s response was definitive. Having taken gold, a journalist asked him whether he would have preferred to have won the medal for Somalia.
“Look, mate,” Farah replied, “This is my country.”
The Kenyans had to wait until Sunday afternoon to finally break their duck, Ezekiel Kemboi, a policeman facing an assault charge back in his home country, stormed ahead in the last lap of the 3,000m steeplechase, after his compatriot, Brimin Kipruto, had fallen. At the end of the race, Kemboi announced that he would retire from the discipline to focus on the marathon.
<div id="attachment_1185" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1185" class="size-medium wp-image-1185" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/150115672_10-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 10: Meseret Defar of Ethiopia celebrates as she crosses the finish line ahead of Jepkemoi Jepkemoi Cheruiyot of Kenya and Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 5000m Final on Day 14 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 10, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)</div>
Amongst the running contingent was Guor Marial, whose story captured the imagination of many in the international media in the run up to the games. Marial was one of four competitors who joined the parade of athletes underneath the Olympic flag. Three—Churandy Martina, Philip Elhage and Rodion Davelaar—are previous competitors from the Netherlands Antilles, which recently became a municipality of the Netherlands.
Marial, in his first Olympics, was born in South Sudan, and turned down an offer from Khartoum to run for the north. Granted refugee status by the US when he was 16, the marathon runner lost many of his relatives in the vicious civil war that saw millions displaced. With South Sudan newly independent and lacking an organizing committee, the decision by officials to allow Marial a spot marks the first time an athlete from Africa’s 54th nation has been able to compete.
While stories like that of Marial have provided great examples of the redemptive power of sport, the event continues to raise questions about the ability of athletes from the continent to be able to make their mark. While the raw talent and commitment of African competitors has seen them dominate a few important sports in recent decades, the London games more than any other may have shown that top-level sport is becoming so clearly bifurcated between the haves and the have-nots. The dominance of the US and China in the medal tables showed that financial clout can be the difference between a victor and an also-ran.
The press fell in love with the stories of hardship and graft of willing amateurs like Hamadou Djibo Issaka, the rower from Niger who took up the sport only months before the games. He worked as a gardener and swimming pool attendant in Niamey and trained in an old fishing boat. The 35-year-old finished a distant last in the single sculls. While narratives like his provide great examples of the vaunted “Olympic Spirit”, they also highlight the vast discrepancies in resources. British rowers, who had one of their best years at home, are the product of a well-established network of training facilities, coaches, equipment and finance.
<div id="attachment_1188" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1188" class="size-medium wp-image-1188" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/149771045_10-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />LONDON, ENGLAND &#8211; AUGUST 03: Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia celebrates winning gold in the Women&#8217;s 10,000m Final on Day 7 of the London 2012 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)</div>
In the end, African hopes fell in the most part to domestic competitors, as British athletes, fired up by the support in London, won through in events that would normally be dominated by the continent’s finest.
Although much noise was made around the ‘Africa Village’ hospitality area about a potential bid by Durban for 2024, with no African countries on the shortlist for 2020, it will be more than a decade before anyone on the continent will be able to claim that home advantage.
Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga, threw his country’s hat into the ring for a bid, reminding press that the country is not only home to some of the world’s greatest runners, elite athletes already flock to the high altitude training centres in Iten, in the Rift Valley. However, major international investment—and a change in international perceptions of the country, and the continent more broadly—would be needed for that bid to take off. It is unlikely to have been enhanced by the closure of the ‘Africa Village’ early due to unpaid debts, caused by the failure of many African Olympic committees to turn up and take out space.

Anastasia Tsichlas and Ria Ledwaba’s names are synonymous with football in South Africa. The two are seen as female powerhouses and adored by fans and players alike—both were owners of hugely successful Premier Soccer League (PSL) teams.
Tsichlas and Ledwaba have made names for themselves in the male-dominated football world, but women are still underrepresented in all areas of the sport. Even the South African Football Association (Safa) is lacking on this front—most of its senior management is male.
“We want to see transformation. As the first woman to have made it in football, I felt one of my responsibilities [apart from developing soccer abilities], was to develop other women,” says Tsichlas.
&nbsp;
It’s not been an easy road, says Ledwaba. Being a woman involved in football meant treading a difficult path with few mentors and little sponsorship.
“Finance plays a big role in running a successful team. When I entered soccer, I entered it because that was my heart’s true calling. The environment was hostile, but I persevered because I was determined to get the best for the players and to get my team promoted to the Premier Soccer League,” says Ledwaba.
Tsichlas, the first woman in Africa to be elected to Fifa, owned Mamelodi Sundowns before it was taken over by mining magnate Patrice Motsepe and Ledwaba owned Ria Stars.
“The dream of Ria Stars was realized. My team played in the PSL for two seasons but due to lack of sponsorship I could no longer manage to run the team successfully. I’m still involved in football through the commercial committee at Safa and the Safa Women’s Soccer Committee,” says Ledwaba.
Transformation is a word both use often. Ledwaba was recently appointed deputy chairperson of the Transformation Commission set up by Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.
Tsichlas was the general manager of Sundowns at a time when most scoffed at the mere idea of a woman holding such a position. Her strategy there was to employ women in strategic positions as a way to address the gender imbalance.
“I like to develop women not only in the sport but also in jobs with responsibilities,” she says.
Sundowns was the best team from 1990 to 2000. Tsichlas recalls endless days in the townships during the stormy 1980s—“the glory days of football,” she says.
“The power of football is tremendous. It is unbelievable how it can bring people together,” says Tsichlas.
Today, South African football is a shadow of its former self. Tsichlas says the problem lies in a lack of development and the absence of big stars.
“Big stars come from development, from the townships. We need to develop players. We can’t keep buying the best players. I’d rather have a player who came through my structures and loved the club, a player with a real hunger to play. These are players who have soccer in their hearts and not in their pockets,” says Tsichlas.
Ledwaba says the country has world-class facilities, but development lags.
“Transformation is required in most schools. Soccer needs to be part of every primary and high school sport curriculum,” she says.
It’s a sentiment Tsichlas echoes.
How then does South Africa get back into the game?
“With the proper technical and administration, we’ll get back into it. We also need to learn to build from the bottom up,” says Ledwaba.
Tsichlas, who has earned the moniker ‘The Iron Lady’, is more forthright and places the blame on too much politics in football.
“It can be done if we all speak the same language. We have the resources—money through sponsors—and the ability. But we don’t have unity because there is a lot of politics in our football, that is why we keep failing as a football nation. We blame the coaches and the players but we don’t look in the mirror at ourselves, as administrators. It starts at the top and trickles down to the clubs. We have to unite football like years ago when we were the top team in Africa,” she says.
Women’s football on the other hand, seems to be in better state. Banyana Banyana qualified to play at the Olympics.
“But with women’s soccer, the marketing of the national team needs to improve and we need to fill the stadiums when they play,” says Ledwaba.
Unlike their male counterparts, women footballers do not earn salaries but rather bonuses as they are not seen as professional players. Tsichlas believes a women’s section in the PSL is key in developing women’s football.
Ledwaba’s exit from Ria Stars was fuelled by big companies’ tendency to support the big teams.
“But the PSL teams now get a sizeable monthly allowance from PSL so every team is on an equal footing,” she says.
Still, Ledwaba has no regrets.
“My dream was realized—I succeeded against all odds. No regrets, just plenty of lessons. I learnt my limits and I got to understand the dynamics of a male-dominated industry,” says Ledwaba.
Tsichlas has several football feathers in her cap. She is the first woman elected to the National Soccer League (NSL)/PSL executive, as well as the first woman to be elected to the executive committee of Safa. She is also the first South African woman representative on the Confederation of African Football.

Tackling A  Man’s World

It was not that long ago when South Africa’s most celebrated cricketer, Jacques Kallis, could not be persuaded to do much more than show off his superior ability with bat and ball. Always a reluctant leader, he did not want that responsibility. Kallis typified the South African cricketer: self-absorbed with his own excellence above all.
If someone had said then that Kallis would make a goon of himself in front of his teammates, at a fancy dress function, people would not believe it—on South Africa’s tour to England, that is exactly what Kallis did. For an improvisation theater session—the brainchild of South Africa’s performance director, Paddy Upton—Kallis chose to dress up as a hotdog. He was the star act of the night. The team man had emerged.
The progress of Kallis is a small, but telling, example of the progress South African cricketers have made in their bid to dominate world cricket. The team has usually bubbled under when it comes to taking the top spot. True, it has maintained a steady hold of the number two position in test cricket and is usually a World Cup favorite, which bows out when it gets tough. This year the team believed it was time to scale the summit and stay there.
South Africa’s change in form can be traced back to the series win in England in 2008. Although the team had been successful away from home before, that victory was a major breakthrough because it was the first since readmission in 1991. Furthermore, it was achieved against an in-form England side on territory considered tough to conquer.
Then the side went to conquer where others had failed for 15 years—Australia. Between 1993, when Australia lost to West Indies, until 2009, the national team had not been defeated at home. For South Africa, to be first team to win in Australia for 15 years was powerful.
Those two tours formed the foundation of six years in which South Africa did not lose away from home. Even though no other team had a record like this, South Africa remained second.
The truth is, South Africa lacked a knockout punch. A jab would have been enough if the team had won at home more often or whitewashed a team away. Against this backdrop South Africa took on England this year in the hope of something special.
Preparations were made with that in mind. Instead of a training camp at one of the usual venues in South Africa, the squad went to Switzerland for an adventure escape with explorer Mike Horn. Famed for circumnavigating the globe without any motorized transport, Horn is a tough guy in every sense of the word.
He made the squad ride up on bicycles and walk for kilometers with heavy backpacks, all on the same day. There was no cricket at all. It was only about being mentally and physically tough.
Wicketkeeper Mark Boucher, who was forced to retire after the first day on tour when he suffered a lacerated eyeball, was one of the outstanding athletes on this grueling journey. He rallied the troops when times were tough. Boucher transformed into a father figure and some of that may have rubbed off on Kallis. When Boucher was injured, Kallis stayed at the hospital for most of the night after his surgery. Kallis also stayed back at the hotel with Boucher the next day and did not go to the ground for a practice match. The next day, Kallis was at captain Graeme Smith’s side when he read out Boucher’s statement.
Kallis scored a century in the first Test, which South Africa won, and dedicated it to Boucher. In so doing, he also improved a record that had been magnificent everywhere but in England. He helped AB de Villiers, who had to take over Boucher’s wicket-keeping role, from his position in the slips and provided Graeme Smith with support due to his experience.
After seventeen years as an international cricketer, Kallis has blossomed late, in his own way. On this tour, Kallis contributed as a person as well as a cricketer. South Africa needed these contributions to go from good to great and the conduct of Kallis is a sign that the team is getting there.

Kallis Blossoms Late In The Orchard Of Victory

Football has certainly changed. In this fast-paced world of ours, our accessories and tools have undoubtedly become more sophisticated. Being a footballer was simpler in my day, now it’s difficult to keep up. You have to be one step ahead of the game with the latest boots and the newest cellphone.
Players have become global icons. With one good goal, gone viral as they say these days, one controversial tweet, or one status update on Facebook, a player can become an instant celebrity. Times they are changing and in so doing making the game more interesting for all.
It’s funny how today you always see players off the field sporting headphones. In my playing days, the portable music player was a ‘ghetto blaster’, weighing in at about 5kgs and carried on the shoulder. Players always want the latest gadgets.
<div id="attachment_1173" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1173" class="size-medium wp-image-1173" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par6804882-300x183.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="183" />FBL-AFR-2012-CIV</div>
I fondly remember in about 1982, one of our senior national team players, Clement ‘Soweto” Banda, was the very first player to own the latest portable music system comprising a tape deck and two massive speakers on either side. It was ultra-modern, metallic in color but he had completely covered it in plastic to minimize wear and tear. He was strictly the only person who was allowed to change or to turn the cassette over to the other side. We all thought he was highly technologically advanced as he masterfully operated his sound system. Later, we were introduced to VHS. We had a video machine attached to a small ‘box-like’ television in our dormitory and the only video we had was Sylvester Stallone’s, Rambo. We watched it over and over again until the tape got caught in the player.
Today, our players come to camp with iphones, iPods, iPads and ‘beats’ headphones and they are like walking communication and music hubs.
During my playing days in Europe, in the mid-eighties, there weren’t any cellphones. We used club house, office or hotel telephones to call home. I remember, when I first arrived in Belgium in 1985, at the club offices I asked if I could call home; they were surprised that there were telephones in Africa. Back then, communications with family and loved ones had to wait for the appropriate time and place.
It was only when I got to Mexico in 1994 that I was first exposed to a cellphone. Even then, we players always had to have the latest and the best technology, and so we did, with our ‘brick’ flap-open Motorola cellphones. Fast forward to today where all the players have the latest technology and are only a few seconds away from speaking to their nearest and dearest.
In my day, especially so with the Zambian national team, it was of huge significance to sing on the bus on our way to our matches. We took pride in this and it was a war cry, it pulled us together and united us. We would sing at the top of our voices clapping the bus seats and stomping our feet on the floor—we were going to battle, the war was on… we were there to play our hearts out, we were there to die a little for our nation.
Today, our footballers each listen to their own inspiration on their portable devices going to the match, however, I am pleased that as the Zambian national team commutes to matches, we still retain that same tradition&#8230; This age old ritual of singing, is too sacred to shed, too unifying to ignore and too beautiful not to be heard. Wherever you see Chipolopolo commuting to their matches, their preparation for battle on the field of play begins on that bus.
Somehow if feels good to see and to hear a group of young people, united at the top of their voices, as if their lives depended on it. Ninety minutes of national duty that means so much to millions of people.
Current football boots are a marvel to see. I am a traditionalist on this topic. I have always and still do on odd occasions, only play in the traditional black and white boots. Today, I see players that purposely wear a different color boot on each foot! My tradition was always to place my right boot on before my left boot and to always step onto the field with my right foot. Superstition or creature of habit, you decide. I still cannot recall anyone, during my nine and a half years, either at Cercle Brugge or at PSV Eindhoven, wearing colored boots. Watching the Euro final between Spain and Italy this year… was there even one player in black boots? Times have changed. Boots today have micro-chips inserted to measure speed and distance, so technologically advanced, who would’ve imagined in just two short decades the tools of our trade have progressed to such an extent. In the next two decades they will soon invent boots that score for you!
The latest hairstyles are also quite interesting, our most daring style in the eighties was the S-Curl perm, ‘Ray Parker Jr. style’, far removed from the current styles of different colors, dreads, shavings, slicked backed, Mohicans, bands and pony tails. Guys like David Beckham became the trendsetters in this hair fashion revolution.
The latest fashion seems to be that of donning tattoos and earrings. I can understand the earring with the advent of metrosexual males, but tattoos on our dark brothers seems to be lost somewhere. I know that they have personal significance to each player, but surely the objective is for them to be seen?
The question is, what is the difference between decades ago and today, in this fast-paced world we live in? The toys and accessories might have seen drastic changes but the ultimate aim, vision, determination and passion, remain the same. As a player you go out there to show your talent and to give your best. You go o

Be Prepared To Die With Your Boots Of Many Colors On

Automotive design is split into the following components: exterior, interior and color or trim elements. The exterior design stylist develops the shape, proportions and surface of each vehicle, and sketches are done manually or using a series of digital renderings. Next, models are made from clay, and carved to exact specifications using CNC Milling machines. The first use of clay modeling has been attributed to Harley Earl, head of General Motors (GM) styling studio in the 1930s. When it comes to the interior, ergonomics and comfort take precedence, but the procedure followed is the same described above for the outside of the car. Color and trim designers are responsible for the layout and use of various materials, where attention to the unique combination of patterns, textures, contrast and sensory nuances is key.
The high turnover of vehicle design we are so accustomed to today, finds its roots in a term called “planned obsolescence”. In 1924, the American car market had reached saturation point and GM’s Alfred P. Sloan Jr. creatively suggested that car designs be changed each year, in order to convince owners that they needed to regularly replace their vehicles. By contrast, Henry Ford was a proponent of functionality and design integrity, and suffered the repercussions of his decision to stick to his principles. In 1931, General Motors overtook Ford’s car sales and went on to become the dominant force in the US motor industry. As marketing is driven primarily by aesthetic design, Sloan’s philosophy had far-reaching and powerful implications. The downside of this strategy for consumers, apart from the obvious, is the risk that manufacturers make use of less expensive components, in order to fulfill the product’s lifetime projections.
But not all automotive designers had their eye on mass production and capturing as much market share as they could muster. The most famous of all car design companies is Pininfarina, founded by Battista ‘Pinnin’ Farina. Born in Italy in 1893, his nickname came from being called the youngest, or smallest—pinnin—of the family. Farina began working in his brother’s car body shop at the tender age of 12, and his passion for cars saw him absorbing whatever knowledge he could until he was ready to begin designing his own. Famously, Battista started doing work for Ferrari in 1952 and officially changed his surname to Pininfarina in 1961. The list of cars the company is credited with designing defies belief; and includes Peugeot, Lancia, Fiat and Alfa Romeo and in recent years, they’ve begun focusing on cars propelled by electricity and solar energy.
Another stalwart of automotive design was founded in 1912 by Giovanni Bertone. The company successfully partnered up with some of the greatest designers of the time: Franco Scaglione—responsible for the creation of the Alfa Giulietta Sprint, which launched Bertone into mass production—Giorgetto Giugiaro, as well as Marcello Gandini—the great Lamborghini Countach was his brainchild. Typified by the use of angular and wedged shapes, Bertone-styled cars always appeared futuristic and the Opel Astra Coupé is a modern vehicle still employing the artistic skills of this famous company.
While other designers stemmed from Great Britain and the United States, none had the formidable success achieved by Pininfarina and Bertone.
Time marches on and with it comes unique problems, as well as the advancement of technology, that have a direct influence on how modern cars look and function. The proliferation of internet access on our cellphones, computers and iPads has seen motoring manufacturers quickly integrating online functionality in their cars.
Advances in aeronautical engineering will soon see drive-by-wire navigation become commonplace in modern production cars. As opposed to direct mechanical controls, a drive-by-wire system senses the driver’s physical interaction with the hand control—replacing the traditional steering wheel—and converts this into a digital signal that goes to an actuator that controls the wheels. What this translates into in terms of car design, is that future vehicles will no longer need a steering column or pedals, resulting in more space for the driver. Another spin-off is that heavy mechanical components will be obsolete, and this means greater fuel efficiency and less environmental impact. Hand controls will house the throttle, braking and steering elements while gears would be selected by the touch of a button.
J Mays, Global VP of design and chief creative officer at Ford Motor Company, feels that a direct result of cellphone technology has been that consumers no longer view physically small items as being a sacrifice in terms of product delivery. It seems then that future generations might eventually break the mold of wanting huge luxury sedans, but rather concentrate on cars that are pragmatic, have less environmental impact, but that deliver on all the other factors that we require for travel; namely safety, comfort, technology, entertainment, fuel efficiency and low cost of maintenance. Mays doesn’t imply that this shift in perception would in any way relinquish the power of status appeal; status in future might be reinterpreted along different lines.
“Design is a communications tool for the brand. It’s a visual communication with the customers we want to contact and have a dialogue with,” he says.
In the next 10 years, Mays feels that the design of cars won’t change per se, but rather the skill set of those doing the designing.
“A lot more digitally-oriented designers will be coming into the auto industry and helping us change the model of why you buy an automobile.”

Desirable By Design

The first ever World Cup on African soil brought the whole continent together. Africa was finally able to showcase its beauty to the rest of the world. The passion, vibe and pure energy were beyond all imagination. People took to the streets, sang through the cold winter nights and the world was introduced to the vuvuzela. Who could ever forget it?
The international football governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), once said: “Brazil is football”. So it’s hard to think that the country synonymous with the beauty of football could be struggling to put on such a huge event in the sporting world. Is it true? Are the Brazilians more concerned with lifting the cup for the sixth time than putting together a spectacular event?
Brazil is the only team to have qualified for all the World Cups and has won it: in 1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. The country last hosted the World Cup in 1950 and is currently ranked 13th by FIFA, Spain and Germany are ranked first and second respectively.
The excitement of a World Cup at the home of legends has been tainted by allegations of corruption and reports that construction was far behind schedule and over budget.
When news of Delta Constructora’s withdrawal from the Maracanã stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, redevelopment and its investigation for corruption and bribery by the federal police came out, it threw a $3.7 million investment into doubt. This money was meant to contribute to the Maracanã Rio 2014 construction consortium, which included Odebrecht Infraestrutura and Andrade Gutierrez. With only two companies left in the consortium, the question was whether there were going to be enough funds to complete the project. At the time, the construction company also had numerous Rio transport infrastructure contracts.
Maracanã was built for the 1950 World Cup final. It holds the record for the largest attendance at a World Cup final, at 199,854 supporters. By April, work on the stadium was about 40% complete and open for public tours. It is the venue for the 2014 World Cup final and is supposed to be completed by February 2013, in time for the Confederations Cup.
PricewaterhouseCoopers partner, Mauricio Girardello wrote: “When building a facility for one event, you need to balance the demands of a limited use with other uses that will make the facility more financially viable over the long term.”
This is something South Africa knows all too well. The country is faced with the problem of unused stadiums that it spent close to $1 billion to build. The 94,000 capacity Soccer City, in Johannesburg, is being used for concerts, games and tours but others, like Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, are sitting empty and costing millions to maintain each year—due to the fact that there are no provincial teams large enough to take the leases over from the provincial governments and the inability of the stadiums to cater to the large rugby teams and their supporter’s needs. The other legacy left by the 2010 World Cup was the dire state of the South African hospitality industry. In 2011, the average occupancy rate dropped to around 48% and many hotels had to shut their doors. The millions of visitors were gone and had taken their money with them.
Danny Jordaan knows what it’s like to stage a World Cup. Jordaan was part of the formation of the South African Football Association (SAFA) in 1991. His World Cup involvement spans almost 15 years and his experience with the 2010 World Cup, held in South Africa, earned him the position of special advisor for the 2014 World Cup; a member of the 2014 World Cup and Confederations Cup’s organizing committee; a member FIFA’s Transparency and Compliance Committee and part of the FIFA technical evaluation team for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
“The infrastructure of Brazil needs huge investment and so their infrastructure program has greater demands on Brazil than in South Africa,” he says.
Access roads, parking lots, subways, trams, monorails and shopping malls are just some of the infrastructure projects Brazil will need to focus on, aside from stadiums. Construction of the $500,000 North/Center (Manaus) Monorail has been awarded to a consortium consisting of three companies.
Brazil’s planned infrastructure budget is around $11.2 billion and it is expecting $102 billion to be contributed to its GDP by the end of the two tournaments. Three point two billion dollars is allocated for airports.
In February, Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) and a Brazilian partner secured 51% of a 20-year concession to expand, operate and maintain the Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo. The airport is said to be one of the worst in the world. Brazil has decided on the privatization route for its airports in the hope to meet the demands that will be placed on them by the millions of expected visitors.
The two countries, Brazil and South Africa, have been sharing information and expertise since the 2010 World Cup, when a Brazilian soccer delegation came to visit. Like Brazil, South Africa received a lot of bad press, with people citing high crime rates; poor preparation and calls to move the tournament to Australia.
Jordaan feels that this criticism rears its head when the host country is in the developing world.
With this shared experience, how much cooperation is there likely to be? There are two sides to this coin. Some would say that the key to hosting a great World Cup would be to use the experience and expertise of those who have come before. But on the other hand, you can argue that Brazil would want to keep all business and money within the country by giving Brazilian companies the opportunity of large-scale projects.
Jordaan says this is where joint ventures come in. He says that as much as the government will not give a 100% tender to a foreign company, having a Brazilian company on board will certainly help—like in the case of ACSA.
“Brazilians are passionate about football. So I think that once they get the bricks and mortar sorted out the people will turn it into a wonderful celebration and that is what we are looking for”, he adds.
One of the issues facing the organizers was the passionate but poor Brazilian fans. In Brazil, students and pensioners are allowed a 50% discount on tickets. As an institution trying to make a profit, this may not be what FIFA had in mind. As a compromise, the organization has agreed to set aside 300,000 tickets for these supporters.
It really has been one thing after another for the Brazilians. The sports minster, Orlando Silva, resigned last October under accusations of corruption. The Brazilian Football Association’s president has also resigned. At some point the Brazilian President, Dilma Rousseff, was not speaking to the Brazilian Confederation of Soccer’s president, Ricardo Teixeira. At the same time the minister of sports, Aldo Rebelo, was not speaking to FIFA’s general secretary, Jérôme Valcke.
In 2000, FIFA introduced the continental rotation policy, which began with the 2010 World Cup in Africa; South America was next in line.
There is a major difference between the South African and Brazilian World Cups, beyond geographics. Unlike Brazil, South Africa went through two competitive bids, the first was lost to Germany for the 2006 World Cup and the second was secured against five African countries with a 500 page bid book. South Africa had to show that it had the capacity to host the tournament and provide 17 government guarantees. Brazil was up against Columbia in the 2014 bid, but the South American Federation unanimously decided to back Brazil as the option for 2014.
This seems to have caused problems. One of the more thorny matters was the sale of alcohol at matches. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) is the largest brewer in the world and one of its brands, Budweiser is a major sponsor of the tournament. The problem was that Brazil’s Soccer Fan Statute—Article 13: prohibits alcohol at Brazilian soccer games. After heated words and years, the World Cup Bill—to lift the ban on alcohol—was passed by the lower house of Parliament in March, the Senate in May and received the final approval and signature of the president in June. The Senate changed the Bill so that it applies only to the Confederations and World Cups.
Some members of Senate were holding out because they felt that their law on alcohol was in line with the FIFA 2004 Safety Guidelines—Article 19: ban on the sale of alcohol and that the ban has helped reduce violence at games.
Jordaan’s tips for a world class World Cup are simple. First, you need the necessary legal framework and then you get the infrastructure going. These seem to be lessons the Brazilians would have done best to learn much earlier in the game. All new reports from both sides seem to be positive that Brazil is back on track, or at least trying.
You’ll get a different story if you ask the millions who live in Brazil’s slums—the favelas.
One of the harshest measures in the preparation for the soccer tournaments, as well as the Olympic Games in 2016, is the forced removal of favela residents. Some have been around for over a century and have now been declared Imminent Domain—meaning that the government has the power to remove the residents and use the space for public use. The proposed 2016 Olympic Park is an extravagant project destined on a favela site.
In a video produced by non-profit organizations, Phesca Brazil and WITNESS, a devastated grandmother tells of how she was born in Morro da Providência, in 1941, and her mother before that. Three generations of her family currently live in the favela. Some residents talk about how they’ve only been given a month’s notice.
Other favelas are enjoying some improvements to the power, water and sewage. There have also been reports of armed police raids with tear gas, rubber bullets and tanks to clean up crime.
All this aside, the eyes of the world will be on Brazil. The only question is whether they will feel the pressure to step up their game and put on a fantastic show or merely the pressure to lift the cup.
“The people [Brazilians] will not react as South Africans. What South Africans did was embrace other teams and the event hype and passion continued and South Africa celebrated in the streets even though their own team was long out of the tournament”, says Jordaan.
“If they [Brazil] don’t [win on home soil] I think it will be a difficult moment”.

The Land of Pelé  Tackles The Tough Times

When you first meet him, you wonder how a Peruvian, who struggles with his English, can get his message across to his squad of players. When he is out on the field in training, all you can make out is the exaggerated gestures and loud, booming voice. To the observer, it seems like a man under pressure, with a fiery temper, who is not quite sure what he is doing.
Think again. There is one thing Augusto Palacios is fluent in and that is football.
His first language is football and he turned around a team in turmoil to become the champions of the South African Premier Soccer League.
When Palacios took over the reins at (South African football club) Orlando Pirates it was after the sacking of Júlio César Leal in March, as the defending league champions began to languish four points behind a strong Mamelodi Sundowns team. Despite a 3-0 thumping at the hands of a lowly Santos side, in his first game in charge, plus a 2-1 home defeat to Free State Stars 10 days later, Palacios systematically worked his way to the top of the table.
The 60-year-old former striker began his career as a coach in 1981 and moved to South Africa to take charge of the Witbank Black Aces in 1983. Nearly three decades later, the technical director of development at the Buccaneers stepped up to lead the Orlando Pirates team to the title.
“Coming in, in the middle of the season and entrusted with the task of defending the league at all costs, was a task that I had to undertake knowing that I could not afford to make it go wrong,” says Palacios.
“Coaching Orlando Pirates last season, under the circumstances the team was in, was with no shadow of a doubt to me the highest point of my professional coaching career. Since my arrival in the country and after I decided to get into coaching, the first thing I endeavored to do was to understand how local players think. It might seem simple, but players in every part of the world think differently.”
Palacios also offers great insight into the South African game like few others can, added to his typical short and to-the-point assessments.
“People are wrong about South African footballers; they think they don’t have skill. Normally, it’s the right combination of skill and technique… I tell the players in training, ‘no lose the ball, no lose the ball—pass to the player who is closest to you and play it safe.’ Something I don’t understand and I always correlate to the players; how it is possible you can lose the ball when there’s no life in the ball. It’s immaterial—I don’t understand how you can make the wrong pass. You are human beings who have brains, you train for this but then you make the wrong pass.”
His strong words have an effect on his charges, but to the crowd, he was not always hailed a hero this season.
Under Leal, Pirates supporters would bay for substitutions and the-then coach would often succumb to the will of the spectators. Palacios, however, adopts a contrasting approach.
“I think from when I came to South Africa I know the habits of the supporters. The supporters can’t make changes for me. The supporters can’t make substitutes for me—never. One thing I cannot do is to let the supporters coach. The supporters don’t make me make the substitutions, but they are not stupid—they can see if a player is missing chances and they see it as a habit.”
Pirate’s fans thought Palacios was merely a good caretaker coach, but have been won over by the successful championship defense.
“I heard Palacios [talking to] Robert Marawa on radio on the last Thursday of the season. They asked him about his coaching tactics and he said after he lost to Santos and to Free State Stars, the average coach would have taken the players back to more physical training, but he took them far away from football and they had fun. When they came back to training they were told they could have any position in the team for that session. So Benni McCarthy went from striker to goalkeeper and the two center backs went [on] to be strikers. Voila, on the last day of the season the people who changed positions all scored to win us the title… That’s genius,” says Toto ‘AngelHeart’ Mothopeng, who has supported the Pirates since 1986.
One of the Peruvian’s old assistants, former Bafana Bafana captain, Steve Komphela, has worked with Pirates tactician for years.
“Augusto introduced me to captaincy in the national team. Augusto molded me as a center back. We used to have our moments of fighting and all that and I’m very close to his family. To me it is more than standing next to the master, or someone who taught you the trade; it’s more like standing next to your mentor and your father,” says Komphela.
The wily Palacios was confirmed by the club at the end of May as coach on a one-year contract.
“Football is my passion and I cannot see myself doing something else away from this game. I remember the first game I sat on the bench against Santos, I met some of my former players and friends, who are now coaching in the Premiership. Those were emotional moments for me—every time we would play a certain team, I would always meet a former player, whom I coached before or played against.”
Palacios has made a rapid transformation, from the under-the-radar youth director, to the guiding spirit of the Soweto giant—one of the biggest clubs in Africa. In this uncertain world where clubs are turfing out coaches on a whim, Pirates would best be advised to hang on to Palacios as long as they can.

The Pirate King

<h4> Cricket</h4>
The gentle Jamaican drawl is one of the lesser-heard accents in Harare. But, in the first week of December, it could be heard in conversation with English inflections, South African slang and Australian twangs.
The source of the Caribbean crooning was the world’s most expensive and sought after twenty-over cricketer, Chris Gayle; the other voices belonged to the many internationals who had signed up to compete in the Stanbic Bank 20 Series, a domestic cricket competition in Zimbabwe.
In a massive coup, Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) managed to lure Gayle and 19 other internationals to play in the tournament, all of them for minimal amounts. ZC achieved it through shrewd planning—the event would only last 10 days compared to others like it which go on for weeks—and careful spending of their steadily growing resources. The tournament underlined ZC’s success as the best thing to happen to sport in the country in the last decade.
<div id="attachment_1066" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1066" class="size-large wp-image-1066" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par7042135-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="356" />Zimbabwe&#8217;s Dynamos FC Partson Jaure (L) vies Esperance de Tunis forward Karim Awadhi (R) during their African Champions League football match at Rades Olympic stadium near Tunis on April 28, 2012. AFP PHOTO / SALAH HABIBI</div>
Like other sectors of Zimbabwean life, such as industry and agriculture, cricket has stuttered through post-independence plights and been crippled by them. Unlike those things, it has found a way to stand up again and thrive. Interest from sponsors has sparked, the national team are the sweethearts of the world stage after they made their return to the elite form of the game—Test cricket—last August; and administration, while not perfect, is functioning.
Ten years ago that was not the case. ZC groped through its darkest period in the early 2000s as it tried to change the image of the sport from a colonial, white man’s game, to a game for the people. They introduced a program of aggressive transformation and were met with supreme resistance that culminated in a walkout by 13 white players in 2004, leaving the cricketing core stripped of experience.
As a solution, promising, young black players were flung onto the international stage and managed to steal the occasional win. Eventually, the mountain of losses was too big and Zimbabwe voluntarily withdrew from Test cricket. They were also forced to cancel all domestic competition as hyperinflation dried up their coffers. By 2008, cricket in Zimbabwe—like almost everything else—was dead.
It took a small collection of determined men to breathe some life back into it. Ozias Bvute, the managing director of ZC, who was blamed for the collapse of the game, played a leading role in its regeneration. He secured sponsors, Stanbic Bank, Croco Motors and Delta Beverages, and pushed for a franchise system with five teams spread across the country. Bvute argued that this would professionalize domestic cricket and allow for greater development. Slowly, funds dripped in and within two years, the system was declared fruitful.
<div id="attachment_1067" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1067" class="size-large wp-image-1067" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/TL_820893-1-1024x738.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="342" />KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; OCTOBER 10, Shingarai Masakadza of Zimbabwe celebrates the wicket of David Miller of South Africa fro 25 runs during the 2nd Pro20 International match between South Africa and Zimbabwe at De Beers Diamond Oval on October 10, 2010 in Kimberley, South Africa Photo by Duif du Toit / Gallo Images</div>
The real roots of its success came from the behind-the-scenes work. Many of the players who had walked away were persuaded back into the fold. Former opening batsmen, Grant Flower, returned as batting coach to the national team, former captains Heath Streak and Alistair Campbell joined as bowling coach and chairman on the cricket committee respectively. Players who had left, such as Gavin Ewing, came home to play in the new franchise system.
Zimbabwe also secured foreign assistance. Englishman, Alan Butcher, was named head coach; former Australian fast-bowler, Jason Gillespie, signed on to coach one of the franchises; the Mid-West Rhinos, New Zealand all-rounder Chris Harris, was put in charge of the under-19s and stints from South Africa’s Allan Donald and Lance Klusener also added to the knowledge base. Talent emerged from regions that were previously unexplored such as, Masvingo, where left-arm fast bowler Brian Vitori was found.
Bvute and his staff also invited Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to send their A teams to play a series in Zimbabwe in a bid to ready them for a Test return. All of them agreed and although Zimbabwe did not win many matches, they competed. The practice games also allowed them to compile a squad of their best players, led by Brendan Taylor, the only white player who had not joined the rebels. Taylor, who was 17 at the time, did not want to let politics influence his sporting choices. His decision earned him the respect of his peers and countrymen, who rallied behind him as they made their Test comeback in August against Bangladesh.
In the seven months since then, Zimbabwe has hosted three incoming tours: Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand and won the first one. They also visited New Zealand. Despite heavy defeats, their potential was evident and they have hope of growing as money and interest flow in. Interest from influential people like Chris Gayle has helped.
“You can see Zimbabwe have improved, they are more competitive, and their development programs are coming together,” he said, in that same drawl that, for one week in December, was the most popular voice in Harare.
&nbsp;
Football
One word sums up the beautiful game in Zimbabwe over the last five years and it’s not a very complimentary one—Asiagate. The saga has just about come full circle after it first emerged that matches played by a parks team masquerading as the Zimbabwean national team between 2007 and 2009, were fixed in favor of gamblers in Asian countries, which included Thailand and Malaysia. Eighty players have since been suspended for their role in colluding with Asian betting syndicates and Henrietta Rushwaya, former Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) chief executive, has been arrested on allegations of bribery and match fixing.
The stains of this scandal will taint the game for years to come. Although ZIFA has undergone a stringent clean-up, it still faces a FIFA investigation, which could see the suspended players and administrators banned for life and would leave the game grappling for relevance as it enters qualifying events for the World Cup and the African Nations’ Cup (AFCON). The country’s sports minister, David Coltart, has described football as being “riddled with corruption,” and admitted that the “structure of the professional game has declined.”
One of the reasons for the downward trend was that Zimbabwe football was highly politicized. President Robert Mugabe’s nephew, Leo, presided over ZIFA for three terms and is thought to be responsible for its deterioration. He is said to have removed administrations which were aligned with the opposition—the Movement for Democratic Change—and replaced them with officials sympathetic to the Mugabe regime, with little or no experience of running a national sport.
Under him, most local clubs were running losses and at national level funds had been exhausted. ZIFA currently operates out of a small, rundown house on Livingstone Street in Harare, where the curtains droop from the windows and the equipment inside is rundown. Zimbabwe is likely one of the few African countries where football is not the most popular sport. In a place as impoverished looking as this, it’s easy to see how players and administrators could be lured into corruption and may agree to be co-opted, even if it will worsen the image of the sport and the nation.
The country’s premier league is not televised by the national broadcaster because it is too expensive for them to do so. Cricket has overtaken it, in financial terms, with corporates preferring to put their money into a sport that gets wider exposure. Even smaller disciplines like hockey attract greater publicity than events on the football pitch.
In September, Zimbabwe hosted the African hockey championships in a newly renovated stadium in Bulawayo to public acclaim. A month earlier, their national football team played a friendly match against current Africa Cup of Nations Champions, Zambia. The event was so low key that the visiting team did not even have proper arrangements for their pre-match training session. ZIFA’s offices had a total of two employees manning the front desk the day before the match and neither had information about where Zambia could train; whether tickets were still available and at what price and where the new chief executive, Jonathan Mashingaidze, who had agreed to have an interview with an international media organization, was to be found.
The lack of activity around the match served as an indication of the dwindling interest in football in the country, from all spheres. While public interest is not especially high, player participation is also starting to dwindle and Shingirai Masakadza is an example of that. A tall, athletic young man who could make his name in almost any sport, Masakadza was part of the generation of black school-going kids that cricket left behind. Unlike his brother, Hamilton, he was not offered a scholarship to a prestigious, formerly white school and instead made his name kicking a football in a high-density area.
Masakadza was contracted as a professional footballer with one of the country’s “two big” clubs: Dynamos and Highlanders of Bulawayo, but struggled to hold down his place. In that time, he was contacted by a former school coach, who offered him the chance to join one of Zimbabwe’s cricket franchises. Masakadza was told that if he just ran in a little quicker and hit the deck a little harder, he could develop into a genuine fast bowler and may represent the country.
He duly swapped his football for a cricket ball and has no regrets about his decision. “Cricket offered me better opportunities than football. Right now I am in a position that most people would only dream of,” he said, after he was picked for the 2011 Cricket World Cup squad. Masakadza is living proof that cricket— not football—is being seen as the path to success in Zimbabwe. For a country that was on the verge of FIFA World Cup qualification in 1993, that is sad.

A Tale Of Two Sports

Every four years, when the Olympics Games are held, it brings back great memories of the 1988 Seoul Games where Zambia made worldwide headlines.
We beat the Italian professionals 4-0. Believe it or not, this is still a defeat they have not forgotten. This is the same score as their recent Euro final defeat against Spain. Yet, I think the shock effect during the 1988 Games was more drastic and maybe more spectacular.
The Italians were totally stunned, they had never even heard of Zambia—from the ‘dark’ continent—let alone a certain 25-year-old who weaved magic with the mastery of his left boot; one who found a chink in the armor of the back line, or the catenaccio of the Azzurri, to score a hat-trick—Kalusha Bwalya.
Our journey started with a tough African zone qualification. First, we had to prevail over Uganda, 6-2 on aggregate, before going on to the final round of qualification against the dreaded Black Stars of Ghana. We lost the first leg of the final qualifier 0-1 and had to better that result at Independence Stadium in Lusaka. We did just that. We beat Ghana 2-0 to book our place at the Seoul Games. It was a fantastic feeling and moment for all of us and the whole country.
The whole country was buzzing with the qualification. There were mixed feelings about the draw and the teams we were drawn to play. I remember how the sports back pages were filled with our black-and-white photos; the opinions of who we would be playing and what we could achieve against great opposition.
When we got to Seoul, I remember we stayed at the same hotel as the Italians. All the players were in awe of the style and fashion that exuded from the fancied Azzurri. They were stylish; they were confident and&#8230; all that hair! I remember my teammates and I couldn’t believe it. In our plain green tracksuits, we were scared to enter the same elevator as them, so much was the respect. That respect however did not extend to the 90 minutes of the game. Besides Charles Musonda, Stone Nyirenda and I, who played in Belgium, and Johnson Bwalya who plied his trade in Switzerland, all the other players were based in Zambia—an enigma to most Europeans.
What a talent generation of footballers we had!
I still recall the goalkeeping and the cat-like agility of Efford Chabala. He was a great goal custodian. I can still recall the entire first 11 as if it were yesterday. Sir Samuel Zoom Ndlovu, our coach and mentor, named his squad: from Chabala in the goals to Manfred Chabinga, Pearson Mwanza and Edmond Mumba, solid at the back; together with Ashious Melu standing tall and ready for any challenge. We had Derby Mankinka and Bwalya—we called him ‘one man commando’ for his solo and determined moves—Charles Musonda in the center together with Samuel Chomba from the deep, and upfront with me were Wisdom Chansa and Stone Nyirenda.
Unfortunately, we lost six members of this team in the 1993 Gabon plane crash which killed 18 of Zambia’s national team players. We lost Eston Mulenga, Wisdom Chansa, Derby Mankinka, Efford Chabala, Samuel Chomba and Richard Mwanza, Chabala’s understudy.
Against the Azzurri, a constellation of stars, we were closely knit and determined that any off-field fears and admiration we had were never carried onto the pitch. I still remember how confident Italian goalkeeper, Stefano Tacconi, had been. At the back, I recall the tussles with Roberto Cravero and Mauro Tassotti.
Against all the odds, we fought on to a famous victory—a pivotal moment in the realization that African football could actually compete at the highest level. The confidence gained by this victory gave African footballers the self-belief that they could compete at the highest level with the best the game could throw at them. We heralded a new era of African football.
Our victory was one that was celebrated across the continent, even though the Olympic Games are not seen as the ultimate footballing prize.
The lessons and experiences of that championship are still valuable to the young players of this era who dream of making a trip to the Games; for Zambians it is still a warming football fairy tale. It may be decades since that victory against Italy, but it remains the single most important of any Chipolopolo triumph. Many use the victory in Seoul as a yardstick.
Since 1988, young players have dreamt of Zambia’s return to the Games. Such is the interest in the Olympic Games, that even though the football team is not going to compete in London, millions will watch the football and comparisons with our exploits in Seoul will be passionately debated.
Ultimately, it is the determination; the sacrifice of the personal athlete; the discipline and belief to do even what our inner heart may fear and the spirit of the champion, that matters most. The most important thing in the Olympics is not to win, but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. I wish all the Olympians well for the 2012 London Olympics. May they ‘fight’ well and get as much satisfaction out of them as I did in 1988.

Zambia 4 Italy 0: We Believed It, The Italians Couldn’t!

Brenda Howden wears her eminence and her gold medal lightly.
“I don’t blow my own trumpet. A lot of children here do not know I have won an Olympic gold medal,” she smiles.
Howden is a picture of fitness and understatement, on this cool winter’s afternoon at Auckland Park Preparatory School in Johannesburg, where she is headmistress. As well as her eminence, she also wears lightly her blue 1980 Olympics jacket. It fits like a glove and you can easily imagine she could still tear down the wing, hockey stick in hand.
It is ironic that, 32 years ago, Howden, then known as Brenda Phillips, was considered too weak to make the grade at the Olympics. She was one of the Bulawayo contingent, which included striker Pat McKillop, goalkeeper Sarah English and Helen Volk.
Howden, then 22, was teaching at her old school in Bulawayo, Townsend High School, when the call to Moscow came. The excitement was tempered by doubt over whether she was strong enough.
“For the next six weeks I had to get up at 4am and got for weightlifting in the gym. Then I had to go to school to teach and during break time I would practise goal shooting. Then, after school, I would go over the road to the nearby race track and run until 9pm at night,” she says.
Howden made it to Moscow and was surprised by what she found. The streets were drab, the shop windows were empty and there were queues for food.
“It seemed that everything was in black, white or grey. We could go into our cafeteria at the Olympic village and order whatever we wanted, but outside people were suffering,” she says.
Security was tight at the Games, but for the team, who were all very young, it was a golden excursion, as well as a sporting event. Howden kept a scrapbook that tells the story of the entire trip; from the good luck cards before they went; to a program from the ballet; pictures of the Kremlin and even a photograph of Britain’s Steve Ovett on his victory lap, after winning his only Olympic gold medal in the 800 meters.
“We even bunked one night to go and see the Moscow underground. It is beautiful and the stations had chandeliers in them,”she says.
There was a huge crowd when the team touched down in Harare. Drum majorettes were on the tarmac and people packed the airport. In the crowd was 11-year-old Lindsey Carlisle on her father’s shoulders.
“The plane was late, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. When they came out we were all looking for the gold medals around their necks,” says Carlisle.
“The arrivals hall was full. I remember seeing the captain Ann Grant and we moved closer so I could touch her medal and I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. I turned to my dad and said I want one of those one day. He said I had better start working towards it.”
True to her word, Carlisle, who grew up in Zimbabwe, but was born in Johannesburg, became captain of the South African hockey team. She went to two Olympics, Sydney and Athens, but brought back no medals and could have been forgiven for being disappointed.
“I never really thought of it that way. Just going to the Olympics and being regarded as one of the best athletes in the world is good enough for me.”
Howden flew home to Bulawayo where schoolchildren had been bussed in from miles around to clap her through arrivals. In the months that followed, she replied to fan mail and autograph hunters from around the world and attended numerous functions and speaking engagements. In 1984, she moved from Bulawayo to South Africa, where she is married with two sons, and where she trains youngsters in hockey.
“I would like to go back to Moscow one day, just to see what it looks like. I am told it has changed,” she says.
“I have no regrets. The Olympics stood me in good stead and it taught me how to fight to the top and never give up.”
Golden words from a golden girl.

The Quiet Olympian

It is one of those crisp winter days that Zimbabwe is famous for. There is not a cloud in the sky, the ground is hard and the grass brown under the thunder of hockey boots. On the touchline, Trish Davies is knee deep in the sport she loves. Here, at Watershed College—a private school in Marondera, 60 kilometers from Harare—Davies barks instructions to her team, Chisipite Girls, as her charges battle to draw.
It has been more than 30 African winters since Davies and her teammates tasted sweet triumph against the odds in Moscow in one of the world’s great sporting stories. They called them the Golden Girls—the team that won glory for their fledgling country and partied in the Kremlin afterwards.
As the slick London Olympics unfolded on television, 55-year-old Davies watched with warm and fond memories of another Olympics in a far off world.
It was May 1980; Zimbabwe was just weeks old and the Russians were in Harare looking for a favor. Most of the country’s hockey players laughed when they heard Russia wanted to fly them to take part in the Olympics—surely not?
For the Russians it was no joke. Their Olympics in Moscow was in disarray. Most of the world boycotted the Games in protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians had toured the world, looking for replacements and wanted Zimbabwe to send a team to make up the numbers in the first ever women’s field hockey event.
“Like any other sport, politics interferes. Whoever is in power is there because he deserves to be there,” says Davies.
“Russia was a top side, England didn’t come, there were quite a few countries that didn’t come, even the USA, that’s their tough luck.”
In a matter of weeks, Zimbabwe trained a 15-strong team to travel to take on hockey teams which had been training for years. In the context of the time, it was even more remarkable; on April 18, just weeks before, Bob Marley sang at Rufaro Stadium in Harare of revolutionaries and Africans liberating Zimbabwe, to a sea of clenched fists, as the union flag came down on colonial rule. Now, here was an all-white team, playing a game with colonial roots as deep as an oak tree, representing the new nation.
On July 8, less than two weeks before the Olympics, the team boarded a World War II Dakota cargo plane at Manyame Air Force base in Harare. The plane stank because it had been used to transport meat.
“We boarded a cargo aircraft together with four members of the Zimbabwe under-23 soccer team who had been invited to the Games. Team spirit started at the airport, where we shared everything we had, including drinking water from the same bottle. The football players including, Shepherd Murape, turned out to be our best supporters,” player-coach, Anthea Stewart remembers.
“It was the first time I had boarded a Dakota, we sat opposite each other,” Davies laughs.
The plane touched down in Zambia where a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane flew the team to a sunny Olympics in Moscow.
“It was quite frightening, all the cabin crew were dressed in khaki and no-one smiled,” says Brenda Howden, who played right half.
Once there, the Zimbabweans heard they were to play on a new surface called astroturf.
“When we left we didn’t know how to play on astroturf. We were just honored to be there playing for the country&#8230;For a start, it was the first time hockey had ever been played at the Olympics, two, Zimbabwe was in it. Everyone of our sportsmen came to see us… it was such an amazing feeling,” says Davies.
The team had to rush out to buy new boots, for a new surface, before the first game against Poland in the round robin tournament.
“That first match was very nerve-wracking because we had not played on that kind of turf, we didn’t know how the opposition was going to play. We had a different style of hockey to the overseas teams. We had very much possession style of hockey. They were a lot quicker than us. With us playing that kind of hockey, that’s how we eventually managed to win gold,” says Davies.
Zimbabwe thrashed Poland 4-0 and in the next game was held 2-2 by Czechoslovakia; then, the hosts, Russia, one of the favorites for the gold. Zimbabwe won 2-0.
“We beat Russia, that was the biggest thing because they had been training for four years and we had been training for just three months,” says Davies
There was a draw against India, then the last game against one of the strongest teams in the tournament. Back home, in Zimbabwe, people took radios to work so they could listen to the game.
“We played Austria in the final match; we had to win to get gold. If we had drawn, we would have silver. By half time we were up 3-0, we sort of knew then that it was ours. During the second half we were smiling a lot, but playing a bit of defensive hockey. We weren’t gonna let them come near us,” she says.
Pat McKillop, who later became a golfer for Matabeleland, scored twice in the final. Overall, the housewife from Bulawayo, who had just turned 24, scored half of Zimbabwe’s 12 goals.
“Pat was a short corner specialist and used to ram them into the back of the net. She had such composure on the field and was a huge role model for me,” says Howden.
The final whistle went and Zimbabwe had won 4-1. The team danced around the pitch with tears streaming down their faces as supporters and fellow Olympians in the stands chanted: “Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe!”
“It was amazing, absolutely amazing, you couldn’t believe it,” says Davies.
Even more amazing was that the referee sprinted off the pitch, after blowing the final whistle, and returned with a bottle of champagne that she popped and passed around the winning team. You could imagine the Olympic committee would take a very dim view of this in 2012.
News agencies reported that some of the members from the victorious team, between gulps of champagne, shouted: “Pamberi ne Jongwe.” It means ‘forward the cockerel’—the symbol of the ruling party, ZANU PF—in ChiShona which is the majority language in Zimbabwe. This report drew a ripple of laughter when Parliament, back in Harare, paused to announce the victory over Austria. This was indeed another world.
The fairy tale was complete as the captain Ann Grant, the 25-year-old bookkeeper from Harare, led her team to the podium to collect the gold medal. Before they left Moscow, the team rubbed shoulders with fellow gold medallists, including Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson, at a party at the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin.
They flew home to a crowd of family and friends at Harare Airport. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, who had been in charge of Zimbabwe for less than two months, saw the surprise win as fillip for the spirit of his new nation.
“We went to his house, it was an afternoon event, he [Mugabe] put on a lovely show for us. It was an honor for the country, we weren’t expecting anything, nothing, none of us were professionals, and we had done it for the country. Sportsmen, that’s how they see it.”
A cheerful Davies, who works in accounts in Harare, says she was thin when she played in Moscow and claims anyone who saw her then wouldn’t recognise her now. Davies is one of a handful of the team of 1980 to remain in Zimbabwe—the rest are scattered from Durban to Dubai.
“Tell you what; I am just coming back to hockey now. I’m not a professional, I have been doing bowling of late,” she says.
“I’m quite happy to come back, it was quite pleasing to come back and help people to play the game.”
As Zimbabwe went into economic meltdown all sports suffered, including hockey. The country is now rebuilding its showcase, Khumalo Hockey Stadium, in Bulawayo, in the hope of staging more tournaments.
“It is getting better now. Hockey is getting back. There was a stage where it had gone right down, especially in the schools, from the schools I think it can now grow,” says Davies.
The Olympic event itself has grown out of proportion. Davies and her team played purely for the love of the game; athletes these days play for money as well as glory. While there was a United States boycott in 1980 over Afghanistan—there has been no such talk in 2012, despite the US, Britain and a dozen other countries which still have troops in the country. It is funny how times change.

Category: Sport

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

More from Sport

Golfer Drives Hard For Paralympic Chance

Ernie, Who Els?

The Golden Gladiator

From African Grit To Plastic Brits