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The father of Rikenette Steenkamp, one of the most talented athletes in the country in any discipline, said they would consider moving overseas if something was not done to mend the numerous problems facing the embattled federation.
Steenkamp, still only 17, was omitted from the team for the global junior showpiece despite reaching the qualifying standard of sub-14 seconds in the women's 100m hurdles on nine occasions this year, setting a 13.61 season‘s best at the University of Johannesburg in March.
After winning the national senior, junior and schools titles this season, Steenkamp picked up an ankle injury and was advised by medical experts not to compete in the six-week window period during which ASA insisted, midway through the season, athletes would need to set the qualifying standards for all international championships this year.
Theo Koen, brought in by ASA assistant administrator Richard Stander to head the ASA medical commission, which last met in 2007, and Steenkamp's father, Rigard, approached Stander to request the young athlete not be forced to run until she had recovered from injury.
In written response, Rigard was informed by Stander that “doctors or their medical information are not considered in the selection process”.
Steenkamp competed in four events in Europe in July, but with the window period having closed, ASA refused to consider her for the team. Her father has called for ASA to be abolished as a federation, and for a new body to run the sport. Otherwise, he says, he'll seriously consider packing an leaving, with his daughter already having turned down an offer to study in Utah, United States.
“If we start our own SA Athletics body, it can only be successful,” Rigard said. “Otherwise we'll start thinking about the United States and Namibia.”
Shortly after the team was named earlier this month, athletes and coaches were up in arms because of the change in qualifying criteria, with some insisting that they had not been aware they needed to set the standards again during the window period.
An emergency meeting was called on July 4, and while the ASA interim board accepted the reasons given by the selection panel for the changes in criteria, Geraldine Pillay promptly withdrew as team manager. Weeks later Pillay resigned as a member of the interim board, following Western Province Athletics president James Evans and marathon runner Hendrick Ramaala who stepped down earlier this year.
Only six interim board members remain of the nine who were selected to assist in recovering the embattled federation after the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) suspended the ASA board and some employees for their handling of Caster Semenya and financial mismanagement in November last year.
Ray Mali, a SASCOC board member, was appointed as ASA administrator, but while Mali is well versed in cricket administration, he has admitted he knows little about athletics. He therefore requested that Stander, the chief executive of Boland Athletics, be seconded to the ASA head office in Houghton to run the technical side of the federation.
Stander, however, has been accused by officials of having “his own agenda” in campaigning for Harold Adams, the president of Boland Athletics, who has confirmed he wants to take over from suspended ASA president Leonard Chuene who is expected to be sacked.
Adams played a key role in having Chuene suspended for his handling of Semenya, having recommended the athlete be withdrawn from last year's World Athletics Championships in Berlin, where he was the team doctor, after gender tests had been ordered by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Adams later admitted he had spoken out against Chuene in an internal inquiry.
Arnaud Malherbe, acting head of the ASA athletes' commission, has approached Stander on numerous occasions to deal with various issues, including more than R300 000 in prize money having been awarded to the wrong athletes after the domestic track and field season, but Stander refuses to address the issues.
Malherbe says he is in contact with more than 200 South African athletes, and is speaking on their behalf, but Stander insists Malherbe has no platform because “the federation has been suspended“, so the ASA athletes' commission is inactive.
However, apart from Mali making it clear that ASA's suspension had been lifted last November, and that the commissions are indeed active, a suspended federation could not have sent a team to compete in Moncton, and ASA is clearly running the sport despite SASCOC's control.
Koen, who has travelled with a number of national junior and youth athletics teams as the medical doctor for the last 15 years, slammed ASA for not taking better care of young South African athletes, including Steenkamp.
“Rikenette's exclusion from the team is sad,” Koen said. “However, it only addresses the start of the rotten core of very poor medical care.”
