SASCOC president Gideon Sam (file)

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In a statement released Friday by SASCOC, it is said an application to fund the athletes' preparation with Lotto money, was turned down by the National Lotteries Board.

The statement reads: "In keeping with their bold attempt to bring back 12 medals from the next Olympic Games in London, 2012, SASCOC has met individually with athletes to make their road to London that much smoother.

"This week in Johannesburg SASCOC released the squad of provisional Olympic and Paralympic athletes for London.

"We have put our faith in the respective Federations as this is a programme designed to benefit each Federation," said SASCOC president Gideon Sam.

"Funds have been made available from the National Lottery to specifically prepare our Olympic and Paralympic campaign and that includes the funding of the two respective provisional squads."

SASCOC also met individually with the athletes in an effort to secure funding over and above the support they were getting from their federations and lottery funding.

Said SASCOC chief executive officer Tubby Reddy: "We indicated to them categorically that we were trying to secure these funds from lottery after discussion with the chair of the distribution agency for sport at the NLDTF.

"We indicated that we would let them know once we have confirmation from the lottery on this ruling.

'We made the application and was informed it was approved by the agency but unfortunately was turned down by the National Lotteries Board.

"On learning of this we indicated this to the athletes and in marathoner Hendrik Ramaala's case we even went further and allocated him R100 000 towards his preparation over and above the monthly Opex grant.

"As an Opex (Operation Excellence) athlete he benefited from SASCOC an amount of R310 000 which was separate to whatever support that ASA (Athletics South Africa) gave him from their Lottery allocation.

"The athletes spoken to in this regard who were told that we were attempting to secure these funds were: Khotso Mokoena, Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, Ramaala, LJ Van Zyl, Alwyn Myburgh, Justin Robbesen, Ryk Neethling, Roland Schoeman, Suzaan van Biljon, Lyndon Ferns, Gerhard Zandberg, Donovan Cech, Ramon Di Clemente and Shaun Rubenstein."