Olympics Paris 2024: Sports minister backs olympics committee to secure funds for Team SA

JOHANNESBURG - The Olympic Games in Paris will get under way in 16 weeks’ time and the issue of athletes’ funding looks likely to dominate Team South Africa’s preparations. 

SA sprinter Shaun Maswanganyi, who is currently a student at the University of Houston in Texas, revealed he was yet to receive any sort of financial backing from the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) in the run-up to the games to bolster his training.

Sports Minister Zizi Kodwa was reluctant to address claims made on social media, but revealed that they were lending their support to the country’s Olympic committee.

“I’ve had a conversation with SASCOC, and fortunately all the federations were present. I’m helping SASCOC CEO [Nozipho Jafta] and talking to a number of commercial partners to see how best we can help our team to go to Paris,” Kodwa said.

Team SA had a disappointing showing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and will be hoping to improve on their haul of three medals, including one gold and two silvers.

The minister has made assurances that they are hard at work to ensure athletes represent the country in France.

“As we know SASCOC is struggling here and there. We want to make sure we send a strong team that must not think about issues of funding. But I think we are getting there together, we have spoken to one or two people – I’m talking companies, commercial partners – to make sure our team must get as many medals as possible, minus off-the-field issues,” Kodwa said.

This year’s Olympics will run from 26 July until 11 August.