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Our Olympic dream


In congratulating Luvo Manyonga, the long jump world champion from my home town Mbekweni, I am  posting a column I wrote for the Paarl Post in 2012. Here it is:

 The world’s eyes are now focused on the London Olympic games. We, from Mzantsi, hope for a better medal haul than the last two Olympics. This is the message that the country’s President has conveyed to our team. Carster Semenya led our team through the stadium in the opening ceremony. It is a feeling of excitement that accompanies the return of Caster to the world stage after the fiasco that accompanied the 2009 World Championships and caused her hurt and embarrassment. For those with short memories please be reminded that in 2009 she won a gold medal and evil people started questioning whether she was a man or a woman. She had to be subjected to gender testing and only cleared to run eleven months later. She is back and carrying our flag in leading our team into the Olympics opening ceremony. I continue to cross my fingers for Team South Africa even though Banyana Banyana have already lost by huge margins to Sweden and Canada. That does not dampen my excitement. I like to think of myself as a patriot. As much as I am excited but in these Olympics I cannot help but feel cheated. I feel cheated of cheering for a homeboy. You see I was born and raised in Mbekweni, Paarl. I only went away to study and later to work. We had local sporting heroes in many codes as we were growing up. I remember a year when one of our own, Patrick Khohli, challenged for National Boxing Honours. This was at the time that we did not have television. It was like everyone in the township was waiting for that evening and we congregated around radio sets (wireless) to listen to the fight. He fought a good fight but was knocked out in the last round. We were so disappointed because we wanted to have a National Champion in Mbekweni. We came close. A number of Sporting luminaries came up but as I look back it seems like we were always the proverbial bridesmaids and never the bride. In all the sporting tournaments I continued to support without much of the selfishness of wanting to see someone from ekasi. I was content to be a South African sport supporter.Then came Luvo Manyonga. This boy from Mbekweni held the All Africa Games record in the Juniors. He went as far as becoming the Junior World Champion in 2010! Wow! Is he one of us? He is and unlike many of our other stars we do not have to compete with other townships in staking our claim on him. He is just Mbekweni. We looked forward to his participation in the London Olympics. We did not even consider his failure in qualifying for the Olympics. He indeed got the first qualification time and was left with the second and final one when the media dashed our hopes with the news of his possible suspension for testing positive for methamphelamine (Tik). He was ultimately suspended for eighteen months as he agreed that it was a childish experimentation with tik. No Mbekweni even in these games. We were devastated. I must start by warning everyone out there that drugs have a long history of destroying careers. It is my prayer that we all stay away from them. Can we stop experimenting even with friends on such a deadly thing. I always think of my standard four teacher who told me that in life we don’t have to throw ourselves into a moving car to know that it kills. We see as it kills someone else and learn. Luvo say he has learnt his lesson. He is a young man who is immensely blessed with a wonderful athletic ability. This does not have to be the end. I would like to remind him of his words after winning the Junior World Championship medal as he said “I dedicate this gold medal to Carster Semenya’s return to International Athletics. It is great that she is back in competition and I look forward to seeing her clock some great times in the months ahead”.May this boy from Mbekweni remember that as Carster made it back and lead our team in these Olympics we await with bated breath the return of Luvo Manyonga to the International Athletics. He must use this suspension time to grow and prepare to jump great distances. May God help him.

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