McKenzie vows to fix funding issues ahead of 2028 Olympic Games

McKenzie

Cape Town — Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, has vowed to provide better funding for all South African athletes ahead of the 2028 Olympics set to take place in Los Angeles.

McKenzie was at OR Tambo Airport as 2-time medal winner, Tatjana Smith, and two of four relay silver medalists, Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza, arrived back in South Africa to cheers of thunderous support.

South Africa performed incredibly well at this year’s Olympics and won six medals, matching their best tally at a single games (2004 and 2012). As McKenzie welcomed back the athletes, he noted the failures of past leaders and vowed to fix all funding issues ahead of the next Olympics, EWN reported.

He said that a sporting nation as strong as South Africa, should not have any funding issues, and said politicians should admit they could have done better. He promised that things would be better for athletes in the future and they need not worry about money.

He also promised to double the number of athletes at the next games in LA.

McKenzie was also outraged that javelin star and silver medal winner, Jo-Ane Van Dyk, had to rely on her parent’s support for the games. He made a public promise to reimburse her father after they dug deep to fund her to compete at the games.

He said the family would receive every cent they spent to get her to France after she had complained that her parents used the last of their money to get her to the games.

“I had a long chat with her and listened to her and I can promise you we are going to make sure we give her father his money back,” he said.

He said he could not compliment the medal without acknowledging the work that was put in to achieve it. He said the department should back the father, who had put himself in debt because the investment paid off.

“As a minister, I am happy to do those things and not to send people there to go to find love. We are not, ‘all we need is love’ — love is a beautiful thing but not at our expense,” he said.

According to TimesLIVE, McKenzie was more than happy to stop members of his department from going to Paris, He admitted that he, and his deputy, Peace Mabe, had gone to the Games, but travelled at different times.
Van Dyk was among other medalists who were not funded by Operation Excellence (OpEx), a funding programme run by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC).
Cyclist, Alan Hatherly, and the Blitzboks were the other two medalists to not receive OpEx funding, while Akani Simbine was the only member of the men’s 4x100m relay team to be sponsored by OpEx, while Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Bayanda Walaza were not on it.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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