Top athletes set to grace SA tracks

Athletes of the calibre of Haile Gebrselassie, Paula Radcliffe, Marion Jones and Hicham El Guerrouj are coming to compete in South Africa.

That's the word from Athletics South Africa (ASA) chief executive Banele Sindani, who confirmed on Thursday that a top-level international track and field meeting would definitely be staged here in the near future.

"IAAF president Lamine Diack and ASA president Leonard Chuene have agreed in principle that we will be hosting a fully-fledged IAAF-sanctioned meeting," Sindani stated.

"They met at the recent World Athletics Final in Monaco and Diack was impressed with our plan," he added.

Chuene and Sindani will meet Diack again some time before the end of the month to "discuss the nitty-gritty".

"We will also use that meeting to appeal to the IAAF for (financial) assistance," said Sindani. "We are talking to sponsors who have expressed an interest in backing the event, but we will need all the help we can get because we want to create a 'wow' sensation with this meeting.

"Hopefully, the IAAF can assist us in staging it for the first year or two or three, until it is established as an event that the top athletes want to come to every year."

Sindani is optimistic that the meet might take place as early as the latter part of next year.

"But we cannot be sure of that because 2004 is an Olympic year, with a different set of dynamics, and the top athletes might not want to travel to far-flung South Africa either before or after Athens," he explained.

"But definitely in 2005, we will have it."

The venue is pretty much cut and dried.

"We are looking at either Pretoria or Durban," said Sindani. "Pretoria has the edge because there is an athletics culture there, and meetings at Pilditch Stadium always draw big crowds.

"The fact that Pretoria is at altitude won't make a difference because the top power athletes like the sprinters will still come."

Envisaged is a Super Grand Prix or Grand Prix-level meet, with the calibre of athletes and amount of prizemoney the main factors determining the category.

"Obviously we would love to stage a Super GP (one level below the Golden Leagues), but that might be a bit ambitious," said Sindani. "A Grand Prix, although not cheap, is more realistic."

ASA announced plans to stage the meet some months ago, and the IAAF have since said they will vigorously expand track and field outside its continental European hotbed.

"Now we want to further exploit that state of affairs," concluded Sindani.