Cinderella sports increasingly coming to the ball
Though cinderella sports in South Africa continue to fight for scraps at the bottom of the barrel, with athletes in various codes working hard to shake things up, the lid might be on the verge of cracking.
At the back end of the year, individuals and teams have stood up in spectacular fashion with some breakthrough performances over the last month.
On the track, Caster Semenya set a 600m world best of 1:21.77 at the World Challenge meeting in Berlin, closing out another superb season with the first global mark of her career.
On the water, Hank McGregor racked up an historic 10th title at the Canoe Marathon World Championships in Pietermaritzburg, leading the national team to second place in the standings.
On the tennis court, Kevin Anderson became the first South African man in 52 years to reach the US Open final, and the first SA player in 26 years to contest for a Grand Slam title.
On the road, Louis Meintjes finished 12th at the Vuelta a Espana, and though this in itself may not seem remarkable, the cyclist has now finished in the top 12 in the general classification at four of his last five Grand Tour races.
On the netball court, the Proteas earned a hard-fought 54-51 victory over England in Invercargill,
Wesley Bo on
securing their first win over the Roses since 2013 and a maiden victory in the four-nation Quad Series.
The results produced in the space of less than a month have attracted a tremendous amount of interest in sports that don’t turn as many heads as they would often like.
And while administrative is- sues in many codes have chased potential sponsors away, elite performances are making them more attractive to potential corporate backers.
With multiple South African athletes challenging and beating the best in the world in various disciplines, the collective effort has uniformly drawn some attention away from the more popular codes.
If their sudden impact can evolve into another breakthrough year in 2018, the momentum they are creating might be enough to shatter the glass ceiling that has pushed them down in the professional era, and the structure of the contents in the SA sports barrel may begin to swirl.
Some federations, including Tennis SA and Netball SA, have been able to rope in real support with different approaches, but it remains relatively insignificant to the astounding figures being thrown around in football, rugby and cricket, which maintain their stranglehold with a relative monopoly.
While they have struggled to move forward individually, however, cinderella sports look to have found a way to work together to try and scoop a larger slice of the pie.
And if they can sort out all the boardroom shenanigans, they may be unstoppable.