Snubbed Khotso lashes out
Veteran jumper left out of Commonwealth Games team off to Oz
Veteran jumper Khotso Mokoena is livid that he has been left out of the Commonwealth Games team that was announced yesterday.
The 32-year-old was hoping to defend the triple jump crown that he won at the previous edition in Scotland two years ago but he did not feature in the 18-member athletics squad going to the Gold Coast, Australia, in April.
The “Crocodile” took a swipe at the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) and immediately told Sowetan that he was renouncing his position in the body’s athletes commission.
“How can you choose policy over a medal contender?” asked Mokoena, who was expected to attend yesterday’s conference, but did not pitch.
“It’s a total disappointment that they chose to exclude me. But I’m not going to let them take away my hard work,” said Mokoena. “I always did the best I can for Sascoc and this is how they chose to treat me. I’ve told them that I quit as a member of [the] athletes commission – if I can’t fight for myself it means I can’t fight for any [other] athlete. This is how I feel and the country should know.”
Sascoc maintained due process was followed in selecting the team.
“Once we received the names of athletes from the national federations in terms of the nominations that made top 10 [ranking] in the Commonwealth [nations], we went through the process of checking each name that was submitted,” said Sascoc high performance general manager Ezera Tshabangu.
“Subsequent to that we then sent the names to the high performance commission that is made up of a group of experts we have in the country covering medicine, sports science and coaching. They too interrogated the names.”
She added: “Once done, we submitted the motivation to the [Sascoc] board, who also interrogated the list.”
Mokoena conceded that he did not compete in triple jump during the August 1 to December 31 qualification period, but he argued that “I still proved myself, that I can still defend my title”.
He jumped 16.68m in Pretoria at the weekend, three centimetres over the Commonwealth Games 16.65m qualifying distance. The 2008 Olympic silver medallist said he would focus on indoor competition overseas in preparation for the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Birmingham in March.
“I know people will look at my age, but reality is we don’t have many triple jumpers and all I want is to inspire youngsters like I did with the long jump, where I had competed for many years.”
Meanwhile, athletics (18 athletes) and swimming (28) made the bulk of the team to the April 5-15 Games that was announced yesterday. Team SA won 40 medals (13 gold, 10 silver and 17 bronze) for a seventh-place finish on the medal table in Glasgow in 2014.