Other Sport
Lotto reduces Olympic funding
2012-10-28 11:54
SA Olympics hero Chad le Clos (File)
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Johannesburg - The National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) has reduced the amount money it gives the country's Olympic athletes, it was reported on Sunday.
The NLDTF had capped grants given to each sports body at R2m, because it said the number of applications had doubled, The Sunday Times reported.
Sporting codes such as swimming, rowing and canoeing had received R8m in each of the past three years, the newspaper reported.
South Africa won six medals in these codes at the recent London Olympic games.
Sporting experts said the funding cap would put the country on a back foot as it prepared for the next Olympics in 2016, the newspaper reported.
The SA Sports Confederation and Olympics Committee told Parliament this week that it needed R400m to prepare for the next Olympics.
The money would be used to fund teams and ensure sporting federations maintained their infrastructure and developed young athletes.
"We had an ask of R72bn and we had R2bn [to allocate]," NLDTF spokesman Sershan Naidoo told The Sunday Times.