Heavens11 said: They belong if - and only if - they earn the right to be on the team. To put blacks on the team "just because" isn't right, and I abhor anyone who would do this.
Over 20 mill BLACKS and not 1 is able to make the team i know where you stand on affirmitive action now.
Let me help out. The Olympics are big bucks festivals. You got money? You can train and you can play. Now go look at the GNP of many African countries. Eating is about as much as some can do and some can't even do that. Games are for people with full stomachs and steriods.
wuz said this in post #5 : Let me help out. The Olympics are big bucks festivals. You got money? You can train and you can play. Now go look at the GNP of many African countries. Eating is about as much as some can do and some can't even do that. Games are for people with full stomachs and steriods.
South Africa has a low GNP? What your saying may be true but 2 nations from Africa sent swimming teams that didn't include any BLACKS and something is wrong with that picture. Is Apartheid Dead? I wondering is the South African President for show?
S. Africa strives for more black athletes
By David Crary, Associated Press Writer | August 23, 2004
ATHENS, Greece -- South Africa's Olympics chief is a conflicted man, proud of all his athletes yet openly disappointed the team doesn't fully reflect the dramatic changes in his country.
Even as he celebrates the four medals won thus far -- by white swimmers and rowers -- Sam Ramsamy yearns for the day when he is no longer asked, "Why does your team have so few blacks?"
"We can't change the demographics overnight," Ramsamy said. "But it's important that we try."
During the apartheid era, when South Africa's white minority wielded power with an array of repressive laws, Ramsamy was an activist in exile, helping coordinate an effective international sports boycott.
In 1992, as apartheid was giving way to democracy, South Africa returned to the Olympics after a 32-year absence with 96 athletes, only 10 of them black. Twelve years later, with his anti-apartheid colleagues from the African National Congress entrenched in power for a decade, Ramsamy regrets that a nation that is 80 percent black has sent a team to Athens that still is 80 percent white.
"It's an indictment on all of us in South African sport," Ramsamy said when the 106 athletes were announced last month. "The Olympic team comes largely from the advantaged sector. ... At the moment not everyone has equal opportunities."
Here in Athens, Ramsamy and his compatriots reveled when South African swimmers set a world record while winning gold in the 400-meter freestyle relay. Relay anchor Roland Schoeman won individual silver and bronze medals, and South Africans won a bronze in pairs rowing.
There have been disappointments as well. World champion high jumper Jacques Freitag, recovering from an ankle injury, failed to reach the finals. The men's and women's field hockey teams fared poorly. The men's soccer and baseball teams -- which competed four year ago in Sydney -- didn't even qualify for these games.
Ramsamy said in an interview that efforts to change the racial mix on future Olympic teams will focus on a handful of sports popular among South Africa's blacks -- notably track, soccer and boxing.
"We have a very serious problem in boxing," he said. "As soon as we prepare our boxers, the promoters steal them. They're not very adequately paid in the amateur ranks, and just a few thousand dollars makes such a difference in their lifestyle."
He said soccer development programs should be bolstered for men and women. Teams qualifying in that sport would likely be predominantly black, helping tilt the makeup of the entire Olympic team.
Basketball, not yet widespread in South Africa, is considered another promising sport for blacks. But some Olympic sports are hard to change because of their cost, Ramsamy said, citing rowing, sailing and canoeing.
Many of the white Olympians come from well-to-do backgrounds; many of the blacks come from impoverished communities. Middleweight boxer Khotso Motau, raised in Soweto, told the Sunday Times newspaper, "I'm thankful I grew up in the gyms. ... Where I come from, life can turn bad on the streets."
In 1992, South Africa won two medals -- both by whites. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, coal-mine worker Josia Thugwane became the country's first black gold medalist, winning the marathon.
South Africa won five medals overall in Atlanta, five more in Sydney in 2000. But controversy preceded those games when Ramsamy excluded the men's hockey squad because it had too few blacks.
Less wealthy than many sports powers, South Africa has developed a support program called Operation Excellence. In effect, it is a balancing act -- earmarking some government subsidies for athletes atop the world rankings while reserving other funds to develop lower-ranked, nonwhite athletes.
Even now, some South Africans feel they gain an edge by living and training abroad.
"There's no place for serious swimming in South Africa," said Schoeman, who lives in Arizona. "We don't have the facilities, the support staff, the competition."
There also has been some grumbling that Operation Excellence might shortchange whites, but white archer Kirstin Lewis, a three-time Olympian, said the team was harmonious.
"We all get on really well," she said. "It's fantastic having a proper South African team, representing all of South Africa."
Lewis, 28, hadn't taken up archery when the sports boycott was in effect, but she remembers it.
"Obviously during the whole apartheid thing, South Africa wasn't the flavor of the month, but it's not like that now," she said. "Our attitude is, 'South Africa, here we go.' We're going to be one of the big players."
Of course thats just my opinion....I could be wrong. (Dennis Miller)
"You might be the toughest little whacker. . .but in my world, you're about as worrisome as a cloudy day." (Dutch Dooley)
08-19-2004 08:42 PM
i know where you stand on affirmitive action now.
