“We’ve worked with our partners to do that, be it the ministry or the National Lotteries Commission, so we’ve been working with those partners and they then provide the funds for those performance bonuses.”
Sascoc president Barry Hendricks has clarified that the country’s two athletes who won medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and those who may pick up medals at the Paralympics would receive financial incentives.
He said that the organisation had been talking with the sports ministry and business entities.
“Our primary focus was to get team SA to the Olympics and to get Team SA to the Paralympics but in the back room, we were having these discussions and now we can safely say that the minister and the Department of Sport have committed to the performance bonus for athletes.”
Hendricks said that the amounts had not yet been finalised.
“We need to work out the amounts that are going to be given to them at this stage. Equal amounts of money will be given to the Olympians for gold, silver and bronze as well to the Paralympians but also to their coaches.”
He said that the sporting body did not want the issue of financial incentives to distract athletes from their performances at either of the global events.
“Let’s wait for the Paralympics to finish because talk is that 17 possible medals are there and I don’t want to put the pressure on the athletes. Let the athletes focus on performing on the field and then take their minds off these performance bonuses and let them focus on competing and then we’ll work in the background to give them their bonuses.”
Image (SA Gold medal Olympian swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker alongside the minister of Sport Nathi Mthethwa and other swimming SA official. Will the department help with bonuses for our medalist?)
