Chuene warns SA athletes

HELSINKI – Show some desire to win medals at next year’s Commonwealth Games, or forget about wearing South Africa’s green athletics vest ever again.

This clear warning to the country’s top athletes came from the chairperson of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene. Chuene would much rather have supported Jacques Freitag and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi at the Olympic stadium, but he stayed at his hotel, supplying reasons for South Africa’s pathetic performance at the world meeting.The team performed well below par and some athletes themselves said they deserved the chastisement.Cheuene says it was always part of their plans to send a young team to the Helsinki championships to start building for the 2007 world meeting in Osaka and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.”The young athletes who impressed me are LJ van Zyl and Khotso Mokoena.They and a few others are the future stars.”I am incensed with the marathon runners, especially since we spent a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble for them.I think this was one of the strongest marathon teams we could have selected and not one of them even completed the distance,” Chuene said.He declined to comment on Mulaudzi’s shocking performance.The 800m athlete was the favourite to win gold, but he did not even qualify for the final round.Chuene also did not say much about Freitag after the former world champion was eliminated in the heats.”We will also invest more in our young athletes and stop providing money to has-beens who do not want to perform for their country anymore.”Those who doubt ASA’s selection process are looking for excuses.Athletes and coaches also make contributions.If they want to change that, we will listen, but we cannot do that every year.”There is no reason why our senior athletes cannot beat the best in the world like the youth and junior athletes showed.We want athletes who are prepared to fight for medals,” Chuene said.- www.news24.comChuene would much rather have supported Jacques Freitag and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi at the Olympic stadium, but he stayed at his hotel, supplying reasons for South Africa’s pathetic performance at the world meeting.The team performed well below par and some athletes themselves said they deserved the chastisement.Cheuene says it was always part of their plans to send a young team to the Helsinki championships to start building for the 2007 world meeting in Osaka and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.”The young athletes who impressed me are LJ van Zyl and Khotso Mokoena.They and a few others are the future stars.”I am incensed with the marathon runners, especially since we spent a lot of money and went to a lot of trouble for them.I think this was one of the strongest marathon teams we could have selected and not one of them even completed the distance,” Chuene said.He declined to comment on Mulaudzi’s shocking performance.The 800m athlete was the favourite to win gold, but he did not even qualify for the final round.Chuene also did not say much about Freitag after the former world champion was eliminated in the heats.”We will also invest more in our young athletes and stop providing money to has-beens who do not want to perform for their country anymore.”Those who doubt ASA’s selection process are looking for excuses.Athletes and coaches also make contributions.If they want to change that, we will listen, but we cannot do that every year.”There is no reason why our senior athletes cannot beat the best in the world like the youth and junior athletes showed.We want athletes who are prepared to fight for medals,” Chuene said.- www.news24.com