A RATHER upsetting story emerged on television about a young weightlifter, Greg Shushu, who is currently rated the best in South Africa, yet will not be representing South Africa at the Olympic Games in England, because, according to Tubby Reddy of Sascoc, he will be too old for the 2016 Olympic Games.
We leave out one of our few potential medalists from the upcoming Olympics because he may be too old for the next Games in 2016 – what kind of thinking is this?
What if the person chosen to represent us at the 2012 Olympics becomes disabled for some reason before the 2016 Olympics, what will our selectors do then? This crazy thinking of many of our sport selectors is what has ruined many of our chances of producing world class sportsmen and women in our country.
In 1981, my brother was the South African singles tennis champion. It wasn’t that it was just a one-off good win, as he had produced many such good results.
However, he too at that time was excluded from the then Springbok team while a complete outsider who did not even rank in the top 20 in South Africa at the time, Peter Lamb (without any significant titles behind his name), was put into the team. Unless selections are fair, we do not stand much of a chance of bringing glory to our country.
Are we not striving towards excellence? No wonder top sports people like cricketer Kevin Pietersen no longer belong to South Africa.
When we have potential medallists in our midst, we should be nurturing them and giving them every chance that we can to make South Africa proud. The last thing we should be doing is tossing our best out in favour of second, third or fourth best to represent us. Absurd.
Marion Braars, Uitenhage
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