{"id":9231,"date":"2012-03-23T15:25:22","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T13:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/olympics-south-africas-london-hopes-boosted-by-new-funds\/"},"modified":"2012-03-23T15:25:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T13:25:22","slug":"olympics-south-africas-london-hopes-boosted-by-new-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/olympics-south-africas-london-hopes-boosted-by-new-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympics-South Africa&#8217;s London hopes boosted by new funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ken Borland<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, March 23<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s Olympic<br \/>\nprospects were boosted on Friday when sports officials received<br \/>\nmore than 80 million rand ($10.36 million) from the government<br \/>\nand national lotteries to help with their preparations for the<br \/>\nLondon Games.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This amount is an attempt to boost the morale and readiness<br \/>\nof our team,&#8221; sports minister Fikile Mbalula said after handing<br \/>\nover a cheque for 34.2 million rand to officials from the Sports<br \/>\nConfederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>National Lotteries Board (NLB) chairman Alfred Nevhutanda<br \/>\nsaid his organisation was giving 47.5 million to Sascoc, up from<br \/>\nallocations of 14 million in 2009\/10 and 17 million in 2010\/11.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sascoc has previously complained of underfunding, leading to<br \/>\na decline in South Africa&#8217;s Olympic performance. Having won six<br \/>\nmedals at the 2004 Athens Olympics, South Africa picked up a<br \/>\nsingle medal &#8211; Khotso Mokoena&#8217;s long jump silver &#8211; in Beijing<br \/>\nfour years ago.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mbalula used the presentation, in front of Sascoc<br \/>\nexecutives, heads of federations, athletes and media, as an<br \/>\nopportunity to invite corporate South Africa to support the<br \/>\nOlympic effort.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We believe that government cannot do this alone. We need<br \/>\nall South Africans, especially our private sector, to come on<br \/>\nboard and contribute towards the success of our team in the<br \/>\nOlympic Games. We hope the investment we make today will<br \/>\nencourage the private sector to do likewise,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sascoc first vice-president Hajera Kajee said he was<br \/>\noptimistic about the team&#8217;s prospects in London in July and<br \/>\nAugust.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are humbled by this support that will help achieve our<br \/>\nathletes&#8217; dreams of being Olympians. Minister Mbalula has been<br \/>\n  fully behind Sascoc and our Olympic effort since he came into<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ken Borland JOHANNESBURG, March 23 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s Olympic prospects were boosted on Friday when sports officials received more than 80 million rand ($10.36 million) from the government and national lotteries to help with their preparations for the London Games. &#8220;This amount is an attempt to boost the morale and readiness of our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}