FORMER Proteas captain Shaun Pollock is one of 15 cricketers who boast a Commonwealth Games cricket gold medal.<\/p>\n
He is one of the few captains to best Steve Waugh in a major final\u201a which he did in the first and only cricket tournament in the 1998 edition.<\/p>\n
That gold medal win remains one of South African cricket\u2019s greatest achievements on the global stage next to the ICC Champions Trophy they won a few months down the line that year.<\/p>\n
Even though cricket may have an abbreviated format that is very popular\u201a it is highly unlikely that cricket will make a return.<\/p>\n
Pollock\u201a though\u201a is happy that the Commonwealth Games will be coming to his hometown in 2022\u201a which gives the city ample time to prepare for the multi-discipline event.<\/p>\n
The rather lukewarm response of the crowd that gathered at the George Campbell School of Technology mirrored the one- sidedness of the bid which was endorsed unopposed by all 71 Commonwealth federations in Auckland on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived here for almost 40 years and we\u2019re passionate about our sport. We would love to be considered as the Mecca of South African sport. This is an opportunity for us to showcase what we can produce\u201a especially our wonderful weather and the facilities that we have. It\u2019s exciting times to know that we have an event of this magnitude coming our way\u201a\u201d Pollock said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity to put money into the pipeline and get our athletes prepared but it\u2019s just so exciting. Your smaller sports like swimming don\u2019t have the kind of backing and they have not been as well supported as compared to the bigger sports because there haven\u2019t been massive events.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn seven years\u2019 time\u201a those athletes could be at the peak of their powers and you\u2019ll be having people shouting for you when you\u2019ve never had them before.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is just as well that Pollock raised the swimming issue for they have delivered consistent performances in World Championships and Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
Seven years is a long time and the likes of Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos could be well past their prime\u201a but new breed of heroes will be needed to soften the hearts of the nation.<\/p>\n
Swimming South Africa\u2019s (SSA) development programmes will come under serious scrutiny\u201a especially from the women\u2019s swimming perspective.<\/p>\n
They have not quite matched up to the feats of their male counterparts but SSA president Jace Naidoo is aware of this.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven years is not a very long time for an athlete because that\u2019s the amount of time it takes to develop a world-class athlete. There\u2019s a lot of work that needs to be done to prepare those athletes and also to identify them so that we make sure we win medals in 2022\u201a\u201d Naidoo said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be pressure on us to perform as swimming has risen to the occasion most of the time and with the right support\u201a we\u2019ll do better than we did in the previous Commonwealth Games. We\u2019ve had some talented athletes who stopped swimming when they got out of high school and they require more support. I am certain that there will be support for our athletes going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naidoo added that the 2022 games will be a dry run to test whether Durban will be able to host the Olympics. The city is targeting the 2028 edition. \u2013 The Times<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: RDM News Wire.<\/p>\n
South Africa Today Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FORMER Proteas captain Shaun Pollock is one of 15 cricketers who boast a Commonwealth Games cricket gold medal. He is one of the few captains to best Steve Waugh in a major final\u201a which he did in the first and only cricket tournament in the 1998 edition. That gold medal win remains one of South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[1400,1402,1403,1399,1390,1397,1391,1398,1396,1406,30,1407,1395,1393,1392,114,120,1401,80,188,1405,1394,1404],"class_list":["post-3071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","category-more-sport","tag-auckland","tag-cameron-van-der-burgh","tag-chad-le-clos","tag-commonwealth-federations","tag-commonwealth-games","tag-commonwealth-games-2022","tag-cricket-gold-medal","tag-george-campbell-school-of-technology","tag-icc-champions-trophy","tag-jace-naidoo","tag-news","tag-olympics","tag-outh-african-cricket","tag-proteas-captain","tag-shaun-pollock","tag-south-africa-today","tag-south-africa-today-sport","tag-south-african-sport","tag-sport","tag-sport-news","tag-ssa","tag-steve-waugh","tag-swimming-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}