Olympic gold medal favourite Hestrie Cloete appears to be the latest in a long line of female sports stars who have suffered heartbreak through dysfunctional behaviour in the bosom of the family.
Not only will the world high jump champion carry South Africa's hopes at the forthcoming Athens Olympics, but she might also have to shoulder the burden of an alleged breakdown in relations with her parents.
It is not suggested that money is the cause of the problem, but there is evidence that it is very central to it. Her mother Martie Storbeck says her daughter earned R15-million last year, but no longer gives her parents the time of day.
"Money has made my child ugly." Hestrie, who is campaigning in Europe, reportedly retorted: "Money has never bothered me but they (her parents) are always looking for it. When I came back from the Sydney Olympics, I gave them R10 000 without anyone asking."
It is suggested that the athlete became so disillusioned by the family feud - which has apparently been going on for several years - that she even considered quitting on the eve of the Olympic Games.
Fortunately, she has since decided to put the whole affair behind her "and let my faith carry me through" and this week she was included in the South African track and field team for Athens.
Hestrie is not the first, nor probably the last, woman sports star to fall prey to family breakdowns related to money matters.
Zola Budd, former 5 000m world record holder, was not on speaking terms with her late father because of his enrichment at her expense; and Steffi Graf, who earned more than $20-million during her tennis career, suffered deep emotional turmoil when her father "who acted as her manager and mentor" was jailed for tax evasion.
In her autobiography, published in 1989, Zola painted a sad picture of a domineering and interfering father who was inspired by her moneymaking potential.
At the height of South Africa's sporting isolation, Frank Budd was instrumental in doing a lucrative deal with the Daily Mail in London without her involvement in which Zola would gain a British passport to qualify for that country as an Olympic athlete, and in return become the "property" of the newspaper.
Even though she was desperately unhappy about becoming "British" and being cast in the glare of adverse publicity "like a circus animal" in England, the little barefoot runner from Bloemfontein had no say in it.
"I was plucked away from everything I loved and put in an environment where I no longer counted. The travel document that gave me entry to international athletics had become the passport to fame and fortune for my father and coach."
Of the £100 000 that the Mail paid to the Budds, Zola got £20 000 and the rest was divided among members of her family and her coach, Pieter Labuschagne.
"That left £45 000 with daddy - and I have never seen a penny of it."
She wrote further: "I finally realised that daddy only saw dollars when he looked at me when I learnt that during negotiations for my contract with Brooks shoes, daddy planned to act as my agent and take a fee of 35 percent."
It was during her stay in Britain that Zola finally walked out on her father and wrote to him that he should not join her at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Is it a gender thing that women in sport seem to be more susceptible to the sins of their fathers or the wiles of their mothers?
It would seem that the best-publicised cases of family upheavals of this nature are the result of daddies-little-darlings becoming big earners - and often against the backdrop of humble family circumstances.
Hestrie's father is a retired train driver and Frank Budd was a printer who ran a smallholding.
There appear to be far fewer headlines concerning sporting sons who attain sudden wealth falling out with their parents over the question of where exactly the money should be channelled, but perhaps young men are allowed greater freedom to do as they choose because parents expect that from them anyway.
Young women on the other hand are liable to experience complications when they marry and, in many cases, when their husbands get involved in their financial affairs.
The fallout in Zola's case was so severe that she refused to allow her father to give her away at her wedding in 1989; and there have been some disparaging remarks made by the Storbeck family about Hestrie's husband, Andries, a Coligny panel-beater.
At least Steffi Graf went off and married fellow tennis ace Andre Agassi who had accumulated such riches himself as not to be fussed by his wife's bank balance. In any case, that wasn't the issue.
It was Steffi's devotion to her father Peter that was sorely tested by his imprisonment for cheating; and by a paternity suit brought against him by a former Playboy model which he at least succeeded in winning.
Of the cases under examination, however, the biggest tragedy occurred when Zola's estranged and divorced father was shot dead with his own shotgun on his smallholding by a man who was jailed for 12 years for murder with extenuating circumstances, and whose defence was that his victim had insulted his girlfriend and made a homosexual pass at him.
In his will, Frank Budd decreed that Zola was not welcome at his funeral.