South Africa will be sending a team of 21 athletes to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The team will be lead by Olympic champions Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh who will be joined Roland Schoeman as three of the athletes returning from the 2010 team that represented the nation in Delhi.
Joining the three Commonwealth returnees will be Bradley Tandy, Dylan Bosch, Myles Brown, Sebastien Rousseau, Leith Shankland, Caydon Muller, Clayton Jimmie, Calvyn Justus, Darren Murray, Tara-lynn Nicholas, Karin Prinsloo, Erin Gallagher, Trudi Maree, Marne Erasmus, Rene Warnes, Marlies Ross, Jessica Ashley-Cooper and Craig Groenewald who will be swimming in para-swimming events.
le Clos is going into the 100 and 200 butterfly as the top ranked swimmer at the games and is ranked third in the 200 and 400 IM. Schoeman enters the competition as the top athlete in the 50 butterfly. van der Burgh is ranked second to Australian Christian Sprenger in both the 50 and 100 breaststroke. Both Prinsloo (200 freestyle) and Zandberg (50 backstroke) are ranked fourth in their best events.
The South African team will be in tough trying to out do the performance of the 2010 that consisted of 10 athletes who collected a total of 16 medals (7 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze) and finished third in the medal standings.
All the US based athletes have been told that Only around $800 will be contributed to their travel expenses. They are apparently required to be in Glasgow the 17th of July. Just over a month and no travel arrangements have been made. Surely these logistical issues should have been covered months ago. If only $800 was being contributed why have they only let the athletes know now? If it had been addressed earlier surely they could’ve bought tickets for a great deal cheaper than 1 month out. I don’t think anything surprises us when it comes to South African swimming and their inability to put their athletes first. Anyone else notice the Manager for The swim team at commonwealth games… Read more »
I heard that at the same meet the Para Pan Pacs team was announced, however, team members can only go if it’s self funded a cost around the 50,000 rand mark (which converts to around $5000).
It’s a real shame.
(I got this information from Achmat Hassiem’s twitter feed. @achmathassiem)