The cost of Durban losing the Commonwealth Games
The 2022 Games could have resuscitated boxing and boosted other struggling sports missed out on the 2016 Rio Olympics
When one counts the cost of losing the 2022 Commonwealth Games‚ you can start with Ricardo and Miranda Malajika. They are the youngest of five boxing brothers in the south of Johannesburg‚ poor as your proverbial church mice and as talented at the sport as the best I have seen in this country — amateur or professional. They were among the many young sporting hopefuls who could have benefited from a financial investment into sport that had been planned for the Games. The Durban bid had promised to set aside R1bn for the development of athletes‚ not just those at elite level‚ to catch the 15- and 16-year-olds in 2015 who would have been hitting their prime by the 2022 Games. That would have been the first time serious money had been pumped into age-group sport in this country. Ricardo‚ a multiple South African age-group champion and a gold medallist at the under-20 Regional 5 Games in Angola last year‚ could well have been a recipient of that money. Miranda‚ a losing finalist in his c...
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