A rough passage to Japan

SA’s athletes are aging and replacements are scarce, a bad prospect for our tally of medals

● Team SA’s upward Olympic curve appears to be flat-lining ahead of Tokyo 2020, if not dipping downwards.

For the past two Games the national squad has delivered the best performances of the post-isolation era, first with six medals at London 2012 and then 10 at Rio 2016.

The haul in Brazil also matched SA’s richest takings of all time in terms of overall tally, achieved twice at Antwerp 1920 and Helsinki 1952.

But hopes of topping that in Japan — SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam is targeting 15 medals — are ambitious.

SA seem on course to land somewhere between the 10 of Rio and the six of London.

To do better than that Caster Semenya, Chad Le Clos, Tatjana Schoenmaker and Wayde van Niekerk — who all have the potential to win two medals each — must excel.

Semenya, as long as she beats the IAAF’s attempts to sabotage her through its revised rules for athletes with hyperandrogenism, could add the 400m or 1,500m to the 800m.

Le Clos, who will be 28 in Japan, faces a rising breed of fast youngsters, while Van Niekerk must prove he’s over the knee injury that kept him off the track in 2018.

In 2014 there were no fewer than 20 medal contenders, of whom eight were either ranked in the top three in the world or had made the podium at their respective world championships. It was actually seven people, but Le Clos had two rankings.

This time, with the 2018 seasons done for most Olympic sports, there are still 20 potential contenders, but the number of top threes is down to six (again Le Clos has two rankings) and there are more questions now.

Sprinter Clarence Munyai is the world No 2 over 200m with his early-season 19.69sec in Pretoria, but after injury decimated his 2018 season, he has yet to prove he can perform at top international meets.

The best formula to use for calculating SA medals at a Games, which worked in 2016 and 2012, was to divide the number of medal contenders by half.

Statistically, one quarter of contenders will get injured before the Games and anothside er quarter will fail to perform. The list of 2020 hopefuls also includes more stars at risk of fading through age or injury:

● Cameron van der Burgh, the 2012 champion and runner-up in 2016, has hinted at retirement and his ranking of 15 in the 100m breaststroke is lower than his third in 2014 and fourth in 2010;

● Sunette Viljoen, the javelin silver medallist in Rio, has struggled with her lower back since last year;

● Apart from Van Niekerk, Anaso Jobodwana must also recapture the form that led to him winning the 200m bronze at the 2015 world championships.

In 2014 Viljoen and Semenya were out- the top eight and long-jump kingpin Luvo Manyonga was battling his tik addiction. One difference is they had age on their side.

Rising stars for Japan include Commonwealth Games champions Schoenmaker and wrestler Martin Erasmus, as well as Alan Hatherly, the under-23 mountain-bike world championship silver medallist.

Under-20 hurdling aces Zeney van der Walt and Soks Zazini are probably too young for Tokyo silverware.

Long-jumper Ruswahl Samaai is another strong contender, and he made the podium with Manyonga at the 2017 world championships and 2018 Commonwealth Games, but repeating that at the Olympics is tough — the last time SA had two competitors sharing a podium was in 1920 in tennis. Triathletes Richard Murray and Henri Schoeman are in the same boat.

Schoeman, ranked 52nd in 2014, was the only person not on the list of contenders back then to claim a gong in Rio.

The men’s 4x100m relay team, ranked ninth, must put in the type of practice that has given Japan and China success.

Akani Simbine, also ninth on the rankings, needs to lift his game in the 100m.

Rowing has dropped substantially in the past four years. In 2014 it had two world championship medal crews and another two making A-finals, but this time it has none. It’s not game over, however, with lightweight double scullers Kirsty McCann and Nicole van Wyk poised to lead the charge back.

The pair of Lawrence Brittain, a silver medallist in Rio, and new partner Jake Green were 10th overall, as were the men’s four.

The good news for the rowers is that in 2010 no boats made A-finals and two years later the lightweight men’s four took gold in London.

There’s hope, and then there’s reality. The picture will get clearer over the next 12 months and questions now will start being answered one way or the other,

Just don’t expect this list to grow much.

The picture will get clearer over the next 12 months and questions now will start being answered one way or the other