There are few dreams bigger than competing at the Olympic Games and for the Investec South Africa Women’s hockey team, that dream was nearly shattered.
Despite winning the Africa Cup in 2011 and meeting the International Olympic Committee standards for qualification, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) decided the competition had not been good enough and they should qualify again for the Games, which start in July.
What a crushing blow to the team and management. The message they were given could be summed up as: “Sorry, we’re not sure you’re good enough, so you’ll have to try again.”
SASCOC’s stringent qualification requirements, however, were standard across all sports to ensure those representing the country are genuine medal contenders.
So much for the underdog and outsiders having a chance. It leads one to wonder if SASCOC has ever heard of upsets in sport. Any child excelling at an Olympic sport would simply like the opportunity to participate in the Games. To have a local set of double standards is fair neither on the individual nor the team.
The women’s hockey team, to their credit, did not let the disappointment get to them as they went out to re-qualify in a gruelling nine-day tournament in Delhi in February. Again, they made it.
Led by 28-year-old captain Marsha Marescia, who was named Player of the Tournament, the South Africans prevailed in the final over a strong Indian side that had beaten them in the past. “I think if you were given the opportunity to go to the Olympic Games and all you had to do was win one event, you would give everything,” said Marescia before the tournament.
“All the teams participating are going to go flat out, but I think that with our mix of youth and experience, we are feeling confident.”
Teammate Kim Hubach said it was a relief when her side made it over the final hurdle and hinted at SASCOC’s curveball. “It was a feeling you can’t describe; months of hard work had finally paid off. The road to London has not been easy but we have grown as a team and beaten the odds.
“I would go to war with these girls. We have grown so close; they’re like a second family.”
The men’s team found themselves in the same situation. They too won the Africa Cup last year, but were forced to take part in a similar qualifying tournament in Japan at the end of April. As with the women, the men were playing for the only spot available to book their place in the Olympic showpiece.
For SASCOC’s sake, it’s lucky they made it, beating Japan 2-1, or the sporting body would have been left trying to explain how a team a fraction outside the top 10 (South Africa is ranked 12th in the world)—and which previously qualified—was not good enough to go to London.

Moving The Goalposts

The gun cracked. The runner shot forward. Her breathing was normal. She soon found her rhythm as they hit the first bend. The group at the front was bunched. The woman in green and gold held steady. As they neared the 400-meter mark, she could feel the Kenyan, Janeth Jepkosgei, breathing down her neck. As the bell went for the last lap, she increased the pace but the Kenyan went with her. That’s when it happened. Two hundred meters to go; it was like a second gun exploded. Eighteen-year-old Caster Semenya surged forward with her long, powerful strides as she tore away from the field to win her first world 800-meter title in a remarkable time of 1:55.45—a glorious victory.
It was the 800-meter women’s final at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin, and Semenya had just become the first South African to win the event.
The world was at her feet. Then the gender controversy began. Suddenly, Semenya was known for her deep voice and muscular build, not normally associated with a teenage girl, rather than her running. She was subjected to a long and public gender verification saga by world athletics. People argued over her case; petty politicians used her as a political football. Semenya was withdrawn from competition until July 2010, before she was cleared to run again—a long and painful exclusion. Many would have given up—she could have, but she refused.
<div id="attachment_806" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-806" class="size-large wp-image-806" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/124075220_10-685x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="709" />FRANCE &#8211; AUGUST 26: The 9th Athletics world championships in St Denis In Paris, France On August 26, 2003 &#8211; Maria Mutola (Moz) wins gold medal in the 800 meters. (Photo by Pool BASSIGNAC/DUCLOS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)</div>
Semenya came back to defend her title in 2011 in Daegu, South Korea, and was beaten narrowly in the final straight as she came in with a time of 1:56.35—a commendable performance, considering the events leading up to the race. Now Semenya plans to go one step further—she wants gold at the Olympic Games in London.
The odds, for the first time, are stacked in her favor. Since her win in Berlin almost three years ago, she has been in contact with former Olympic Gold medallist in the 800-meters at the 2000 games, Mozambican Maria Mutola.
No stranger to gender controversy herself, although all was proved unwarranted, the 39-year-old Mutola recently replaced Semenya’s coach, Michael Seme, at the end of last year. Legend has it that Mutola was caught masquerading as a man when she played in a football cup final back home in Maputo. Amid the furore, a coach spotted her running talent and the rest, as they say, is history.
Mutola dominated the two-lap race during the 1990s and into the next century. During this time, she became a seven-time world indoor gold medallist and she also added three world 800 meters gold medals to her tally.
Mutola and Semenya make a powerful team gunning for gold in July. Mutola trains the now 21-year-old prodigy in Pretoria, north of Johannesburg.
“Me and Caster have been talking since she won the World Championships in Berlin, so we’ve been in contact ever since,” she pauses with a glint of pride in her eye.
“Any time she needed advice, she would call me and then we would talk a little bit. It’s been a long-term relationship. I’ve known Caster since then, it just fell into place, so it wasn’t anything strange when she approached me and asked if I would train her.”
Since then, the duo have been specific in their targets, and Semenya recently ran her second Olympic qualifying time at a Yellow Pages Meeting in Pretoria on April 21, guaranteeing her place at the Olympics showpiece.
She ran 1:59.58 and in so doing, at high-altitude, became the first South African woman to run under two minutes on home soil in 21 years.
Now Mutola has her sights firmly set on the top honor: the Olympic gold.
“[I think] very good advice is to be in shape, to stay healthy and go to London in shape, to be able to win it.
“[Judging from] all the Olympics I have been through, it is going to take under two minutes to be able to win it. You have to produce 1:55/1:56 to be able to win the race because everyone is training for the same event—to be an Olympic champion.”
Now Semenya heads overseas to begin her final preparations by competing in Europe.
“The most important thing is to have confidence in oneself going to these European track meets. You have to be able to win over there, run good times and go to the Olympics with a lot of confidence. That is a very important thing for athletes.”
Semenya was expected to qualify sooner for the showpiece, but now that she has run the time, everything is back on track, according to Mutola as she alluded again to the gold medal.
“In terms of her preparations, I have to say it is going very well at the moment, I was a bit concerned at the beginning but I see that we are improving, we are doing the right thing. Everything is going well at the moment.
“The most important thing is for her to stay in shape and believe in herself. When she gets to the Olympic Games, anybody who qualifies for the finals has a chance of winning gold.”
Mutola believes Semenya could be the best ever. She says the world record set in 1983 by Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvílová looks set to tumble if Semenya stays on course. “I always thought she would be the one to break the world record because when she was 18, she was running 1:55’s and I think when she is about 25, and more mature, she would probably break the world record.
“If you are 18 and run a 1:55, that means that if you are 20-something, you would be able to run between 1:52 and 1:53 and that indication I see in Caster. I hope and I know she can be the one to break that world record that has been standing for a very long time.”
One thing is for sure: with the troubles of her past behind her, the Mutola-Semenya southern African team will be the hot favorite come the end of July. The history books await.

African Power Sisters  Strive For Gold

Angola’s female basketball warriors are pretty pleased with themselves right now in a country mad about the sport. They came back from a thrashing from favourites, Senegal, to take gold at the 2011 Afrobasket Women in Mali; they were feted by President José Eduardo dos Santos and the Minister of Sport, Goncalves Muandumba, on their triumphant return to Luanda and now they have a shot, alongside the men, for a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.
The progress of the Palancas Negras—which translates as ‘black sables’—is being seen as a breakthrough for women’s basketball. Behind this success is the former captain of the Angolan male basketball team, Moreira, who has coached the team for six years.
In the basketball courts of Luanda’s number one sport complex, Citadela, a youthful looking, casually dressed and relaxed Moreira gave FORBES AFRICA the inside track on this heroic chapter in Angolan basketball.
<h3>How do you explain Palancas Negras’ victory at Afrobasket Women in Bamako?</h3>
This year’s result is the fruit of continuous hard work and improvement. The Palancas Negras have already had a foot on the podium since 2007. We gained bronze at Afrobasket Women both in 2007 and in 2009. We lost against Mali twice in the finals. But now we’ve managed to beat them, which made the victory twice as beautiful.
<h3>What does this victory mean for Angola?</h3>
Male basketball was already ‘hot’ in Angola. Now that the men have lost their ticket to the Olympics, the women will definitely be in the spotlight. This victory is of key importance for Angolan female basketball, which has very little support and lacks professional organization. Angola only has four female teams—Primeiro do Agosto, Maculusso, Interclub and Juventud de Viana—of which only two are represented in the national team.
<h3>What role did leading player Nassecela Mauricio, who was elected Most Valuable Player of this year’s Afrobasket tournament, play in the female team’s victory?</h3>
She really gave it her all. She’s a fighter, and she definitely deserves this victory. But I don’t like speaking about any player in particular because the entire team played very well.
<h3>What do you and your team strive for at the Olympics, and what are the greatest challenges?</h3>
We’ll do all we can to reduce the quality gap with the other Olympic teams. Whether we manage to do so will partly depend on the team’s make-up. Height, weight, physical condition and defence are all challenges. Our tallest player is 1.92m. But we’re fast and aggressive, we always seek the best positions, and we will train hard on our three pointers. In order to gain experience, we will try to train abroad as much as we can.
<h3>Isn’t African basketball often deemed a ‘nursery’ for young talented players, who exchange their African teams for European or American teams as soon as they get a chance?</h3>
Generally speaking that’s true, but I think that would be different if they had the same opportunities at home. Africa, except for maybe Tunisia and Egypt, lacks the right conditions for basketball. To professionalize, you need good financial resources. Angola has done that. Our country used to have many players in Portugal, including myself for 11 years. But when Angola started paying well, it managed to create its own great team.
<h3>What needs to be done to improve African basketball conditions?</h3>
Focus on the basics: create more playing fields and schools. Provide the minimum conditions. In the second phase, you can start thinking about remuneration and investments. The Angolan government plans to build a venue for basketball training purposes only, but so far it is only a concept.
<h3>What do you think of the Basketball without Borders camp that was recently held in South Africa?</h3>
It seems to serve a ‘double agenda’. The concept aims at promoting basketball as a common language for global peace, friendship and sportsmanship, but at the same time serves as a recruiting platform.
I think it is an extremely valuable initiative because of the friendships, cultural exchange and experience it creates. I do agree that it’s probably not beneficial for African countries. But what matters to me more is that it benefits the players. It allows them to play in much more competitive championships and to improve their very poor African working conditions.
<h3> How does it feel to be celebrated by the Angolan president?</h3>
We’re happy! This is an acknowledgement of our hard work.

Sizzling Sisters Slam Dunk Their Way To The Olympics

They both live in Cape Town, but are poles apart. Wendy Ackerman is on everyone’s rich list; Rapelang Rabana wants to be, but for now is content with being on the FORBES ‘30 Under 30: Africa’s Best Young Entrepreneurs’ list.
Ackerman is polished, prim and proper; Rabana is young, spunky and bright. Both have struggled against what the business world thinks women should be. Between them, they weave a fascinating story of how women can become successful entrepreneurs.
Be warned, anyone who refers to Ackerman as the chairman’s wife. Legend has it that she once received a lunch invitation bearing the words “wife of Pick ‘n Pay mogul”. This did not go down well.
“This makes me cross. Don’t introduce me as the chairman’s wife. I have had to work very hard. I want to be recognized as a person in my own right,” she told Independent on Saturday.
Decades in business have made her a force to be reckoned with and a source of great knowledge, opinions and advice for up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Ackerman attended convent schools during the Second World War. Despite being destined for the retail industry, she majored in history of art, English and psychology at the University of Cape Town (UCT). In her second year at university, she married future retail magnate Raymond Ackerman and moved to Johannesburg, where she lived for 12 years and completed her degree. Taking care of three children at home frustrated her.
In 1964, the year Nelson Mandela went to prison for life and amidst the biggest political crack down in the country’s history, Ackerman was part of the team that put on a Shakespeare festival in South Africa’s townships, with actors from the University of Cambridge. This led to Ackerman giving English lessons in the townships.
When it came to learning economics at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Ackerman dropped out because she didn’t understand the “airy fairy” subject. Outside the classroom, her husband became her teacher and she picked up her business knowledge through osmosis, when they attended business lectures. The couple went to the United States to study supermarketing and worked at supermarkets together—the business that was to make their fortune.
Ackerman says working with her husband has been good, as he’s an understanding person. Their biggest fights were about company policy. They fought over the building of a hypermarket in picturesque Constantia, Cape Town.
She walked into his office, wearing a pinstripe suit, to hand in her resignation letter. She would stay until the day the company broke ground in Constantia. Ackerman says many of the company executives tried to change her mind, warning her that it could be detrimental to her marriage. As far as she was concerned, this was all business and had nothing to do with her marriage. The hypermarket was not built—the pinstripe suit had won.
The journey that led to South African supermarket chain Pick ‘n Pay (PnP) began in 1966 when Checkers, still a grocery store at the time, fired Raymond Ackerman.
“I’ve always had enormous faith in my husband; I was delighted when he was fired,” says Ackerman, adding that he hadn’t been happy at work for a long time.
When the Ackermans moved back to Cape Town to establish PnP, Raymond would call her, whenever he was snowed under, to do anything from human resources to balancing the books and building homes for black managers. The housing project was one of the ways they took a stance against apartheid and says she was never worried she’d push too far.
“It never occurred to him that I might not be able to do something. So I did it. It didn’t occur to me to think that I couldn’t do it,” says Ackerman.
Equally ready for the fight is Rabana. Born in Botswana and called Africa’s Marissa Mayer—the CEO and president of Yahoo—Rabana is the co-founding CEO of Yeigo Communications. The daughter of an architect and electrical engineer, both of whom had moved out of corporate to start their own architectural firm, she spent her first eight to 10 years in Gaborone and left to board at Roedean School—a private school in Johannesburg.
Rabana wasn’t keen on university, but her strict African parents would have none of that. Unsure of what to study, she asked her brother to pick something for her, as long as it wasn’t accounting or actuarial science. She was so uninterested that she only realized she had been enrolled for a business and computer science degree, when she attended the first lecture at UCT. Her brother defended his choice by saying that she needed a challenge.
In an interview last year with Ventures Africa, Rabana said: “Most of us will be familiar with the Chinese proverb about teaching a man to fish as opposed to giving him a fish. My proposition is: teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime. Expose a man to the internet and he will change his life.”
It led to a Bachelor of Business Science in computer science and finance. Rabana was faced with the question that plagues most graduates: “What now?”
She was tired of starting at the bottom of the food chain. Entrepreneurship was a way for her to make her own way.  Her parents took some convincing—they felt that going into an established company was the way.
Rabana and two of her classmates wanted a solution to the high cost of communication. They spent months prototyping and by September 2006 had a working demo. Lungisa Matshoba was chief technology officer, while Andrew Snowden was head of engineering. The pair ran the development side of the business, while Rabana focused on financing and a business plan. She gave up on banks and went looking for mentors and connections.
“Everything we were doing was cutting edge,” says Rabana.
Yeigo launched in February 2007, promising Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which had just been made available in South Africa. Two other foreign companies released the same program at around the same time. As far as Rabana is concerned, people need to conquer the fear of someone stealing their ideas to become the next Mark Zuckerberg.
The partnership with Tellfree began with the Swiss company licensing software from Yeigo. Tellfree bought a majority stake in 2008 and provided the young start-up with the infrastructure it needed. In return, Rabana become Tellfree’s global head of research. Prior to this there was a multi-million-dollar investment deal with American company, Quality One Wireless, a mobile handset distribution firm. It fell through after the preliminary agreement.
Rabana says that things were very bad for a long time and that the industry still has a long way to go. The problem seems to be a risk culture that scares most from venturing out on their own in a country where joining a corporate is considered safe. There is also a shortage of accessible networks, and a lack of financing from traditional institutions that think this business is too risky.
It seems that more can be done on this front. Rabana has joined the advisory board for Grindstone Accelerator to assist high-growth technology SMEs. She says that South Africa has lost its competitive edge on the continent, in communications and technology, because of delayed responses to regulatory issues. She cites Kenya’s success as the result of having technology and communications ministers that are in tune with the industry.
Take Israel. In 1993, venture capitalism was kick started by the launch of a prototype government-owned fund called Yozma. In three years, 10 drop-down funds were established and each given $20 million. The country now has 70 venture capital funds, raising around $607 million last year.
Rabana doesn’t feel that she lived under a glass ceiling as she skirted the corporate world. Both hope that women in business will soon find their rightful place. Ackerman has traveled the longest road as her parents didn’t even want her to work.
“They didn’t understand the hunger in me to work,” says Ackerman.
Ackerman once asked her female staff members if they wanted careers or jobs—around 80% said that they wanted a job. She believes that this is because of the many responsibilities these women have at home.
For years, Ackerman didn’t draw a salary, but has always considered her financial independence extremely important.
As for her role in the company, Ackerman says she does the jobs that no one else wants. She recalls how she once went away and handed over some of her work to her daughter, Suzanne Ackerman-Berman. When she got back Ackerman-Berman walked into her office, threw the files on the table and said: “You have a shit job.”
If Ackerman were 20 years younger, she would do it all again and doesn’t believe that it’s easier to start a business today than it was for PnP in the 1960s.
“You’ve got to eat, sleep and drink it 24/7,” she warns.
According to the rising star, Rabana, having a bright idea is not good enough because success is more about execution than anything else.
“Entrepreneurship is a much more personal journey than it is a business journey,” says Rabana.
“Entitlement is a disease in South Africa. I say nobody is entitled to anything. I’m afraid there are no short cuts, you’ve just jolly well got to work—that’s all there is to it,” says Ackerman.
Ackerman says BEE—South Africa’s affirmative action policy—is rubbish and that she didn’t have a glass ceiling to break through, but a glass box, as she even had to fight her husband. She wanted recognition in the company for what she had offered and not just to be the chairman’s wife. It took her 15 years to become a director at PnP.
Although Rabana feels that policies such as BEE have a role in achieving some balance, she too has a problem with entitlement.
“The culture of entitlement fostered by policies like BEE has also undermined the drive of young black professionals and this will cost South Africa dearly,” according to Rabana.
Then there is discrimination. Both women agree that double standards exist. They say, in business, if a man is being kind and gentle he’s complimented, but if a woman does it she’s just being a typical woman.
A born teacher, Ackerman saw the lack in her country’s schools. In 1973, she set up the Ackerman Family Education Trust with the 2% of PnP shares her husband gave her. The trust gives bursaries, worth $353,000 a year, to deserving individuals and has more than 800 graduates.
“I’m not a name at the bottom of a check,” she says.
One of the recipients is Isaac Motaung, the company’s human resources director, who started at PnP as a trolley pusher. He received a bursary to study through the University of South Africa.
Rabana is the chairperson of Ubuntu Africa, a children’s HIV/Aids NGO that provides healthcare and support services to HIV positive youth in Khayelitsha, a township in the Western Cape.
Ackerman, who was recognized as one of 60 women on the 2013 Women, Inspiration and Enterprise Network ‘Africa Power Influencer’ list, once said that retirement was not in her and her husband’s DNA. She still feels that way.
At the other end of the life scale, seven years after the start of Yeigo, Rabana is just beginning.
“Our hearts remain in start-up mode… I don’t imagine I’m anywhere near my peak,” she says.
Rabana sees herself starting a number of businesses in different industries, but still linked to technology. Her latest ventures are a web and mobile entertainment platform for the American market and a local technology-driven education company called Rekindle Learning. The start-up provides a mobile learning application aimed at schools and corporates. The KnowledgePulse uses micro-learning to make the content easier to retain.
With a number of achievements under their belts these women prove that making it in business has nothing to do with your background, generation or environment in 21st century Africa. It’s all about knowing what you want and getting it.

Tag: Women

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Moving The Goalposts

African Power Sisters Strive For Gold

Sizzling Sisters Slam Dunk Their Way To The Olympics

Don’t patronize us