Athletics leadership shake-up renews hope
The administrative leadership of athletics has taken a turn for the better, or so all who love the sport will be hoping after the voting in of a new Athletics SA Board last weekend.
James Moloi is the new president, having beaten Aleck Skhosana comfortably by 39 votes to 27 in an election where the voting should be weighted towards the incumbent, given that every board member has a personal vote, as do all the members of the cross country, road running and track and field commissions.
Indeed before the election this aspect of the voting looked like it would deliver an uphill battle towards change.
Clearly, however, the sentiment had swung with the lack of competition during the lockdown and the refusal to negotiate a way forward for some of the biggest money-spinning events in the sport.
Chatting to Moloi in the weeks building up to the election, he shared a belief that the sport needed to be given back to the athletes in a meaningful way.
He has promised to work towards ensuring more exposure for the sport and by doing so enticing a return of substantial sponsorship.
Moloi has a strong roadrunning background and that is a positive from a numbers game perspective.
Skhosana pinned his hopes on “my work speaks for itself”, as quoted in an interview with Top Runner.
He is further quoted as referring to the performances of Castor Semenya and Wayde van Niekerk on the world stage being his doing and then lumping in the remarkable win by the men’s 4x100m relay team at the relay championships in Poland recently.
“That alone shows the wonderful work I have done,” he said.
It is a remarkable statement to make and was clearly not a sentiment shared by the provinces or indeed many leaders in sport.
I received numerous WhatsApp messages informing me of the elections outcome and all were tinged with a positivity that I believe Moloi, and his new board can deliver. They simply need to want to.
Little is known of the new vice-president, Shireen Noble, who hails from South Western Districts, but from a gender point of view it is a positive move, and few will shed tears at her defeat of Harold Adams.
During Moloi’s tenure as president of Central Gauteng, they have been a force in athletics and more recently have organised more events than any other province coming out of lockdown mode, thus showing a determination to get the sport back on its feet.
In this neck of the woods, Sunday sees the first official road race for 14 months.
The Ocean 10 takes place in Gonubie, and many sports lovers will hope that means a new momentum takes hold.
Real Gijimas have, for instance, leapt in and are offering their own 10km in Mdantsane next Sunday, and it is sure to be as alive as their races of the past.
It is absolutely the correct thing to do and after my chat to Moloi, I believe there may well be much positive news in the weeks and months ahead as leaders in the sport break the shackles of fear and focus on the delivery of inspired racing for all.