<\/p>\n
Johannesburg \u2013 Many years ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a good South African who turned professional. His name was Jake Tuli.<\/p>\n
More years later, the swimming pool in Orlando East, Soweto, was named after him. That is where the story of swimming in the townships ends. It almost gives credence to the negative truism that suggests blacks and water are like chalk and cheese, they do not mix.<\/p>\n
A visit to the Tuli swimming pool is enough to induce tears. The pool is closed. None of the swimming pools in the townships, wherever there\u2019s one to be found, has ever produced any credible black swimmer worth a mention. Any chance of a Penny Heyns or Natalie du Toit coming out of the townships is doubtful. If you go into any formerly white area, rich or poor, you are likely to find a communal pool. They are as ubiquitous as patchy soccer fields are in the townships.<\/p>\n The status quo seems bent to endure unless a miracle happens. An attempt at initiating a conversation with Swimming South Africa about the state of swimming and pools in the black townships is almost like pulling teeth. It is an interview they will do with, at best, the most reluctance possible.<\/p>\n Mafata Modutoane is Operations Manager at Swimming South Africa, and I asked if his organisation had any data numbers of public pools in the country, he said: \u201cWe do gather information on the number of public and private pools in the country. According to the information, we have gathered, there are 627 pools (public, private and gym pools) of which 114 are leased by some of our affiliates. It can get tricky to keep up with the numbers, since it is not mandatory for any persons, companies or government entities to report the building or closure of pools to the federation.\u201d<\/p>\n How many of these, if at all, is Swimming SA responsible for keeping in use?<\/p>\n \u201cSwimming South Africa does not own or maintain any facilities \u2013 public facilities are owned by and are the responsibility of the municipality, and private pools are maintained by private owners. SSA continuously engages municipalities on the importance of pool maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n Modutoane says the \u201cuptake of swimming (especially as a sport) in the townships is very minimal, this, as a result of lack of adequately maintained facilities\u201d.<\/p>\n Do our Olympians give coaching clinics in the townships?<\/p>\n Modutoane says: \u201cMost of our elite athletes do get involved in the development of the sport in disadvantaged areas. This might be through the federation, their clubs\/schools or in their capacity. For instance, Chad le Clos has been involved in numerous programmes organised by our department of Mass Participation, especially in the KwaZulu-Natal region. This goes back to the days of Ryk Neethling, Penny Heyns, Thabang Moeketsane and Roland Schoeman. We are happy that the current crop of athletes such as Tatjana Schoenmaker, Chad le Clos and Erin Gallagher are also eager to get involved in such programmes and we involve them as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n He says about their development programme: \u201cSSA provides directive and funding and provinces implement \u2013 there are provinces that have LTS programmes with schools. We run holiday programmes, FINA world aquatics awareness, rural and ocean splashes, water safety programmes during winter \u2013 limited funding is a challenge and more can be done.\u201d<\/p>\n But are there any black swimming hopefuls that Swimming SA has discovered?<\/p>\n \u201cThere are several swimmers: Michael Houlie on the world champs team, Kobe Ndebele on the world short course and Clayton Jimmy, on the world short course and Trinity Hearne.\u201d<\/p>\n What does Swimming SA know about the closure of the Jake Tuli swimming pool in Orlando East, Soweto?<\/p>\n \u201cSwimming South Africa does not know thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n Modutoane reiterates that the maintenance of communal pools is the competency of the municipalities.<\/p>\n When is the next major swimming competition, like the Olympics, where Swimming SA will send a delegation of representatives? The next major competition is the FINA Short Course Championships, in Australia, in December.<\/p>\n What is the colour composition of that delegation?<\/p>\n There are qualifying times as set out by FINA. SSA complies with these requirements and selects squads\/teams on that basis. Twenty percent of swimmers of colour have achieved world champ qualifying times, Modutoane says.<\/p>\n What is your total annual budget as an organisation?<\/p>\n \u201cSSA\u2019s budget for the year 2022 is R 22 million.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a list of the country\u2019s 2020 Olympic Swimming Team. Good luck if you find any product of the townships\u2019 pools:<\/p>\n \u00b7 Pieter Coetze<\/p>\n \u00b7 Ethan du Preez<\/p>\n \u00b7 Michael Houlie<\/p>\n \u00b7 Chad le Clos<\/p>\n \u00b7 Matthew Sates<\/p>\n \u00b7 Bradley Tandy<\/p>\n \u00b7 Aimee Canny<\/p>\n \u00b7 Emma Chelius<\/p>\n \u00b7 Kaylene Corbett<\/p>\n \u00b7 Erin Gallagher<\/p>\n \u00b7 Tatjana Schoenmaker<\/p>\n \u00b7 Mariella Venter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Johannesburg \u2013 Many years ago, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a good South African who turned professional. His name was Jake Tuli. More years later, the swimming pool in Orlando East, Soweto, was named after him. That is where the story of swimming in the townships ends. It almost gives credence to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}