The case for specialisation

I read an interesting article this week from one of the local sports journo’s who commented that part of the reason South Africa did so poorly at this Olympics was the lack of structure in our approach to this campaign.

In a nutshell the writer pointed out that the reason Kenya had gotten more medals than South Africa was because they had gone to the Olympics with a specific plan. Their plan was that they produced runners, not show jumpers, not hockey players, not swimmers – just RUNNERS.

South Africa on the other hand took the policy of sending anyone who was good enough to be at the Olympics (I said BE not COMPETE).

I’m going to use South African hockey as an example because it’s a topic I know some things about. I thought I ladies might have been in with a shout for a top 6 finish if they played out of their skin. If they had pulled it off then they would have been a huge boost to SA hockey from both a sponsorship and marketing perspective. Unfortunately they were out of their depth and they didn’t do the business.

On the other hand, our Men’s hockey side were never in with a shout. The selection row before they left, the scramble for sponsorship money and then the poor results at the games, ultimately were a black mark against hockey.

(Just as an aside – I agree that smaller nations need to play stronger opposition if they hope to improve, I disagree that this should happen at the Olympics).

Quite simply we committed funds and resources to a team that would never deliver. That is 20 people worth of resources that were sponsored despite having no chance. Let’s pick a nominal value of R25000 per player and that gives you half a million Rand that was spent on a side we knew could never bring us home a top 4 or top 6 finish.

This is not taking anything away from the men’s hockey side, its simply looking at the bigger picture of the Games campaign as a whole.

Fairness of it all?

Was it fair to them to be sent to the Olympics to produce an average performance?

Conversely was it fair to other athletes who might have been in with a shout to have been denied that additional sponsorship?

Could the same money not have been better invested in SA hockey development for the next campaign?

I argued this point with certain people within hockey this week and I got the argument that it is the Olympics and if you are given the chance to participate, it only comes around every 4 years and most athletes only 1 (occasionally 2 chances) to compete.

I guess I am torn on the issue.

Should the Olympics have been a chance to showcase ANY sporting talent or rather the BEST sporting talent we have?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20, but I don’t believe we thought this campaign through and we never had any goals. We sent a bunch of guys and girls out to take on the world and then bemoaned the fact that we brought home a single medal.

If you don’t have a goal, you can never expect to bring home the results that you demand…