Two sporting thoughts for the day

I spent some time today at the 5th of June stadium, the venue of athletics track and field in the All Africa Games, and also the venue where the opening and closing ceremonies take place. I could ramble on about the South African athletes that took part while I was there, but you'll probably pick it up on national television and in the press anyway.

Instead, here are two impressions of sport in South African context I've had while being here, observing many different sports and talking to locals, team managers and athletes.

A common occurrence here are gasps of wonder when we explain to Algerians and others that South Africa has ten, yes, TEN venues for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, all of which can seat more than forty or fifty thousand people. Their eyes quite literally pop out when we show them the blow-up posters of the stadia we have up at the exhibition.

Algerians simply can't fathom ten stadia that big in one African country - they only have one such stadium in the whole of Algeria, which is a country not much smaller than South Africa, and one of the richest nations on the continent.

 In South Africa we tend to forget how rich we in fact are in many aspects, including sport. Few developing countries in South Africa's league have ten world class stadia, or the level of technical and scientific sports support we can access locally.

We tend to compare South Africa with Australia and other industrialised nations when it comes to sport, when we should in fact be comparing ourselves with similar countries. And when we do, we'll surprise ourselves with how fortunate we are, and how much the hard work we put into sport has paid off, especially in the past ten years.

Africa's sport is up and coming

I've spoken to more team managers in more sports this past ten days than I've ever done before in such short time. The one common perception I've picked up among them is that the level of competition within Africa is improving. Sports are finding that African countries are becoming veritable opponents in sports where South Africa had been the de facto champions in the past. African championships are increasingly being held in high regard. All this is much appreciated by all sports, who are clearly hungry for a higher class competition on the continent.

If this trend continues, it could only bade well for future All African Games, and may have some kind of impact on international rankings. Keep this trend in mind for the next Games taking place in Zambia in four years' time.

 

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