SA athletes have big shoes to fill in Paris

The success of the Springboks in winning the last two Rugby World Cups proved to be massive nation-building moments in Mzansi.

But can Team South Africa follow suit at the Paris Olympics? The global showpiece event kicks off on Friday with the opening ceremony along the River Seine.

The most popular Olympic sport is athletics, where the men’s 100m final brings the world to a standstill.

South Africa will hope to participate in that race once again, with national champion Akani Simbine in fine form heading into Paris.

The 30-year-old posted a superb time of 9.86 seconds just last weekend at the London Diamond League meeting, and it came at just the right time to remind the other favourites that he will be a serious contender.

Simbine finished second behind American Noah Lyles – who is the current world champion – in London, and the SA star will hope to finally end his bogey at major championships, having finished fourth and fifth in a number of Olympic and world finals.

The other major SA medal hope at Paris 2024 is swimming queen Tatjana Smith (née Schoenmaker), who will be going all out to defend her 200m breaststroke title.

She has been hampered by a leg injury this year, but Smith is as competitive as ever, and will try to pull off another surprise in the 100m breaststroke as well, where she won a silver medal in Tokyo.

Team SA secured three medals in Japan three years ago, with the third podium finisher being surfer Bianca Buitendag with a silver.

Could there be another surfer making SA proud in the shape of Jordy Smith? He has all the experience of years on the circuit, and he is determined to make up for lost time, having missed out on the Tokyo Games due to a knee injury.

Since Team South Africa’s re-entry to the Olympics in 1992 after apartheid isolation, they have won a medal at each Games – two at Barcelona 1992, five at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, six at Athens 2004, one at Beijing 2008, six at London 2012, 10 at Rio 2016 and three in Tokyo in 2021.

Let’s hope that our current team can follow in the footsteps of Josia Thugwane, Penny Heyns, Caster Semenya and Wayde van Niekerk by going for gold.

Cape Times