By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@GalloImages.
The five-month old Board of Athletics South Africa on Saturday held a successfull Special General Meeting and Council Meeting at Kempton Park, Johannesburg.
The sessions were divided into two with the Special General Meeting going first where the Financial Report was tabled and adopted without questions. The first session, which started at 9am, lasted not more that 25 minutes.
There was a moment of silence as a tribute to all who died of coronavirus.
The Council Meeting started on a positive note with an ovation for the national junior team for their outstanding performance at the WA U20 Championships in Kenya (18 Aug 2021 – 22 Aug 2021) where South Africa set a new world record of 38.51 seconds in the men’s 4 x 100m, shattering the previous 38.62 set by the USA in Costa Rica in July 2019. In the process, South Africa also blasted the African record of 39.33 which it had equalled the day before.
At the WA U20 Championships, South Africa took sixth position, with a total of nine medals made of three golds, two silvers and four bronze.
The performance at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, was noted with sadness as there were no medals from Athletics. The national federation is now mapping a way forward to make it conducive for the athletes to prepare and produce better medal performance from the 2022 season.
ASA President, James Moloi, told the Council that the new Board hit the ground running and together with the ASA sports marketing agents, successfully negotiated a four-year deal with banking giant, Absa. The sponsorship is for road running known as the Absa RUN Your City Series which kicked off with the ASA 10km National Championships which was incorporated into the Absa DURBAN 10K CITYRUN held eThekwini on Sunday 31. It includes the Absa CAPE TOWN 12K CITYRUN and the Absa JOBURG 10K CITYRUN.
“On sponsorships, we have already cast the net pretty wide and have been in touch with some companies, some of whom have shown interest in what we are selling to them,” said Moloi.
The President also announced oversight responsibilities that have been allocated to Additional Board Members:
- Esther Malema is responsible for oversight on Anti-Doping Committee
- Ntathu Gwadiso is responsible for oversight on Technical Committee
- Adelina Ranthimo is responsible for oversight on Development Committee
- Noma Nonkonyane is responsible for oversight on Women Committee
- USSA Athletics Representative, Jazzman Mahlakgane, is Chairperson of Coaching and is responsible for oversight on Commercial Sub-Committee.
Moloi informed the Meeting that ASA has now established a Dispute Resolution Chamber which consists of five judges. “We urge provinces, clubs, athletes and all other, to make use of this forum and not to resort to taking athletics matters to court. Those who will bypass this chamber will bear the costs of their actions and ASA will in future not hesitate to suspend members who take matters to court.”
The Council was also told that the DSD case against World Athletics, which affects athletes such as Caster Semenya, is still being pursued by ASA as mandated by the government to pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. The matter is before the European Court of Human Rights and Justice. This follows ASA’s appeal to the Swiss Federal Court that was turned down.
The suspension of the Executive Committee of schools body SASA, who are our Associate Member, has been lifted. This follows an official application by the affected Executive Committee to lift the said suspension.
The interim structure that was appointed by ASA has now been disbanded. A sit-down meeting will be convened with SASA to resolve some of the internal matters that have been identified and deemed to affect the running of schools athletics.
On Broadcast Rights, the Council was told that from the update of the agent dealing with this matter, the suggestion is that ASA seems to be close to a happy announcement before the end of the year.
“On behalf of the Board and the entire Athletics Family, I must thank the Media fraternity both print, TV and internet-based publications, for continuously giving South African athletics fair space locally and international. ASA currently has a current Media reach in five continents and still counting.
“The role of media remains critical because through them, our events, competition and all types of activities the public and sponsors are kept informed. ASA relies on journalists to give coverage of our Athletics news, accurately and inclusively and to hold us accountable. I therefore urge each Member Province to ensure that you treat media as partners and ensure that you provide media with reasonable working conditions, so that we can get maximum outcome from their work. “
ASA plans to see the return of its national awards from 2022. The ASA Council Meeting ended at 2.10pm.