Deadwood to face the chop
Relay sprinters say bad advice contributed to disaster at the World Championships in Beijing
MANAGERS nominated to Team SA for next year’s Rio Olympics will be screened in a bid to eliminate below-par personnel who could hinder the performances of athletes.
Individual sporting federations submit the names of managers, coaches and other staff to the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) for selection.
Sascoc has the final say, but in the past the Olympic body has normally followed the recommendations.
“There will be a screening process for managers,” Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy told the Sunday Times. “We will also offer training . . . They are there to support the athletes.”
Athletes across codes at past Olympics and Commonwealth Games have encountered inept managers who were appointed because they were friends with the right people or it was simply their turn to go on a trip.
Frank Dick, Sascoc’s consultant high-performance manager until after the Rio showpiece, has insisted that worldclass athletes need to be surrounded by world-class coaches, managers and other support staff.
But Sascoc’s new policy won’t hold sway on Athletics SA’s (ASA) process of appointing a coach and a manager to qualify the men’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams for the 2016 Games in August.
The qualification deadline is July 11.
The 4x100m outfit is considered a realistic medal potential, with the core made up of Henricho Bruintjies and Akani Simbine, who share the 9.97sec SA 100m record, and world championship 200m bronze medallist Anaso Jobodwana. The fourth spot is open.
But the relay team bombed out in the heats at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, largely because of insufficient preparation time.
They crashed at the first handover, with Bruintjies tumbling onto the deck, unable to get the baton to Jobodwana.
The four had their first proper training session only earlier that morning because Jobodwana had needed the previous day to recover after his 19.87sec national record run to reach the 200m podium behind Usain Bolt and Justin Gatlin.
Straight after the relay, Bruintjies and Jobodwana offered to take the blame.
But two members of the Beijing team, who don’t want to be named, said it wasn’t fair for them to carry the can.
They said ASA-appointed sprint coach Brandon du Plessis made three errors, one of which probably scuppered the team. According to them, Du Plessis:
Didn’t have tape to mark the points on the warm-up track to practise their handovers, so they had to borrow tape from other teams; ý Initially wanted Simbine, who ran the second-fastest anchor leg at the 2014 Commonwealth Games behind only Bolt, to do the back straight instead, although he relented after discussions with the athletes; and, ý Instructed the runners receiving the baton to start moving when their approaching teammate was 32 steps away.
The athletes insisted this was too big a gap and explained why Bruintjies couldn’t get the baton into Jobodwana’s hand.
The norm, they pointed out, was 15-25 steps.
Du Plessis declined to comment and referred Sunday Times to ASA.
One of the two sprinters believed Du Plessis was not up to the job, but the other reckoned he could adapt in time.
“I could work with Brandon,” said the second athlete. “He just needs to learn us.
“Communication between the athletes and team management was poor [in Beijing].
“We felt we could go to Brandon and then he would go to management. He was good in that sense. Most of us had the impression that most of the guys [managers] were on a holiday,” he added.
“If they can manage us properly — so we can pass the baton through the hands — then we’ll be fine.”
The SA team leader in Beijing, Pieter Lourens, insisted nobody had slacked off.
“I have an open-door policy. They could have raised any concerns with me. The athletes also have an athletes commission they could have approached.”