Whether SA multiple racewalk champion Lebogang Shange can be counted among realistic medal contenders at next year’s Olympic Games is a subject open for debate.
However, the 25-year-old is among the 11 track and field elite athletes who attained the required 2016 Olympic qualifying standard at the recently ended International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships showpiece in Beijing.
Shange made the list with Beijing medallists Wayde van Niekerk, Anaso Jobodwana and Sunette Viljoen.
With his 11th-placed finish in the 20km racewalk final at the global championships last week, Shange’s time of 1:21:43 – an SA record – was the fourth time he had breached the 1:24:00 in the open qualifying window for the Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Olympics.
The qualification window period for the Rio spectacle opened in May and hopefuls have until July 11 next year to secure their places in the Team SA Olympic squad.
Now the Orange Farm, Johannesburg-born walker said all he needed was “support from my country and federation” to realise his potential as a challenger for a medal.
“Walking is not big in South Africa and I would like to join other international walkers at overseas camps to realise my full potential. As preparation for the Rio Olympics, I would really like to train at high altitude, either in Mexico or Colombia,” said Shange, who added that he had mainly relied heavily on friends and the High Performance Centre in Pretoria to compete abroad.
He is hoping to get a share of the resources in the operational excellence (Opex) programme of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) when the next assessment of intakes is made at the end of this month.
The Opex programme provides medal hopefuls with financial, scientific and medical support through different tiers based on athletes’ profiles.
Sascoc said during their announcement of the Rio Olympic team’s selection policies that they had approved more than R7.8 million for the Olympic programme.
The allocations were for the period April 1 to September 30, but only a few track and field athletes were part of Opex.
Those who are already on the list include Van Niekerk, Jobodwana, Viljoen, LJ van Zyl (400m hurdles) and Willem Coertzen (decathlon)