Our golden generation
Team SA has the talent to challenge the nation’s record haul of 16 gold medals from 1954. But how exactly can they take the gold out of Gold Coast? David Isaacson, who will be reporting from Australia, looks at what the team must do
● Team South Africa has the talent to flirt with destiny in Australia as they bid to come of age with a sweet 16 this month.
That’s how many gold medals they’ll need to match the country’s best-ever Commonwealth Games performance from Cardiff in 1954.
It took SA seven Olympics from readmission in 1992 to 2016 to match the record 10 medals won in 1952 and 1920, and the Gold Coast showpiece that kicks off on Thursday will be Commonwealth No 7.
Never before has an SA team been jampacked with so many Olympic and world championship medallists.
With Chad Le Clos, Caster Semenya, Luvo Manyonga and the Blitzboks in the squad, the 2018 edition of Team SA has the talent to rip the gold out of Gold Coast.
SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam has estimated they will need 15 gold medals to reclaim fifth spot on the medals table after ending seventh at Glasgow 2014, despite earning 13 golds.
But why stop there when history is just one gong further down the road?
LEADING THE HUNT
SA’s hunt begins in the triathlon on Thursday, courtesy of Olympic bronze medallist Henri Schoeman and Richard Murray, fourth at the 2016 Rio Games.
But they will have to negotiate England’s formidable Brownlee brothers, two-time Olympic champion Alistair and Jonathan, runner-up two years ago.
The duo will have a second crack at gold in the mixed relay with Gill Sanders and Simone Ackermann two days later.
Le Clos is set to compete in four individual events, with gold a distinct possibility in three of them.
His first crack, in a 200m freestyle bursting with Aussies and Englishman James Guy on Friday, could be the toughest.
Le Clos, the 200m ’fly world champ, will be favourite in that event, and he became the top seed in the 100m after Olympic champion Joseph Schooling of Singapore pulled out to focus on the Asian Games.
For Le Clos to win the 50 ’fly he will have to get past England’s defending champion, Ben Proud.
SA’S BEST ATHLETICS TEAM?
Semenya spearheads a powerful contingent which could outdo SA’s best track-and-field outfit at a Commonwealth Games so far, the team that landed six golds at Sydney 1938.
The Olympic and world 800m champion is gunning for the 800m-1500m double.
Third in the 1500m at the world championships last year, Semenya will have to beat Kenya’s world champion Faith Kipyegon in what could be one of the great contests in the Carrara Stadium.
That final is scheduled for next Tuesday. Luvo Manyonga, the world champion and Olympic silver medallist, and Ruswahl Samaai, third at both the 2017 world championships and 2014 Commonwealth Games, should fight it out for the top two podium positions in the long jump.
The men’s 100m could be a battle between Akani Simbine and Jamaican Yohan Blake, who has beaten the South African by no more than three-hundredths of a second in the past couple of seasons.
New SA 200m record-holder Clarence Munyai and 2015 world championship bronze medallist Anaso Jobodwana are among the favourites in the 200m, especially after the withdrawal of Canada’s Andre De Grasse.
The sprinters will combine to chase gold in the men’s 4x100m relay.
Javelin-thrower Sunette Viljoen, the Olympic silver medallist and a former twotime Games champion, and race-walker Lebogang Shange can’t be discounted.
Add in the Blitzboks, the reigning Games champions who’ve prioritised their title defence, and there’s 14 potential golds.
BOWLING THEM OVER
But to get over the line, the satellite sports will have to join the party, and the most powerful of them is lawn bowls.
Since readmission SA has won 57 gold medals, with 40 from athletics and swimming. Of the remaining 17, 10 have been claimed by the white-clad warriors.
Five of those came at Glasgow 2014. Colleen Piketh, who won the pairs with Tracy-Lee Botha there, warns that Gold Coast could be a different story.
Scotland’s soggy greens were considerably slower than those they’ll play on in Australia.
The quicker greens require a different bowl as well as sharper skills. “Your weight control has to be better because it’s so much quicker. It’s like playing on tiles. There’s less resistance and you have to control it a lot better,” said Piketh, a former teacher who made her Games debut at Melbourne 2006.
That year SA’s lawn bowlers reaped no gold. In fact, the last time SA won a Commonwealth Games bowls title in Australia was 80 years ago.
The Aussies and Kiwis struggled in Glasgow, but they’ll be stronger in Gold Coast.
Piketh, who also picked up a bronze in the singles in 2014, says she and her female
A medal is that one thing that has just eluded us, one thing I’d like to change Shelley Russell Veteran hockey player
teammates made their way to Gold Coast last year to get some game time during the Australian Open.
“We tried to get that experience because the greens are so different.”
THE LONG SHOTS
Only five codes have contributed to SA’s golden haul — gymnastics and shooting with two apiece, and judo, boxing and cricket, when it was included as a one-off at Kuala Lumpur 1998, where Shaun Pollock captained a below-strength Proteas to victory over Steve Waugh’s Australia in the final.
But the Cinderellas have not contributed more than two golds at a single Games since SA returned from isolation.
Shooter Andre du Toit is hoping he can achieve what his father failed to do at Melbourne 2006 and Delhi 2010 — win a medal.
Twelve years ago Johan finished fourth in the full-bore rifle competition, also known as Bisley, where competitors shoot over three days, with distances increasing from 300m to 900m, and the bull ranging from the size of a tennis ball to a Frisbee.
Andre has twice competed at the Brisbane range where he’ll be shooting for glory at the Games, the first being at the 2011 world championships where he took silver.
There’ll also be a host of others fighting to make the lower echelons of the podium, like the netball and hockey teams.
Veteran hockey star Shelley Russell was in the side that ended fourth four years ago.
“[A medal] is that one thing that has just eluded us, one thing I’d like to change before the end of my career," Russell said.
“We’ve spoken about it [winning a medal] for a long time and it’s been a goal of ours probably since the last Commonwealth Games.”
Silver and bronze will help, but gold is the main currency on the medal table.