Swimming SA president Alan Fritz outlines plans for the 2028 and 2032 Olympic Games

In an interview with SABC Sport, Fritz shared that preparations for the upcoming Olympic cycle have already begun.

He expressed optimism about South Africa's potential to secure several medals at the 2028 Games in the United States, while keeping a keen focus on the 2032 Games in Australia.

"If you plan like we are planning, we are now planning for 2032 and 2036. So, for 2028 Los Angeles our hopefuls are probably Matthew Sates who is training in Europe these days. He's shaken off the issues that he had. He's definitely a medal contender,” Fritz said.

“Pieter [Coetze] is a medal contender, Rebecca [Meder] is a medal contender, two of the other girls, Kaylene Corbett is a medal contender but they can only transfer those contention or being contenders into hard silverware with the backing of Swimming South Africa.

“So, we're hoping that for 2028 we should not be more shy than what we were in Paris."

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According to Friz, South Africans rely on swimming to deliver medals at major events like the Olympic Games, World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and even regional competitions.

However, the sport faces challenges such as limited funding, a lack of facilities in townships and underprivileged areas, and difficulties in building a strong swimming culture in the country.

"Since the re-admission into the world sports, swimming has always been the number one federation in this country in terms of building performances. Whether you look at regional events, we are responsible, if you take region five games, we are responsible for 70 to 80% of the medals,” he added.

“You take Africa Games, the last Africa Games we were almost responsible for 50 to 60% of the medals and if you take any competition that's multi-coded, we are responsible of always more 50 to 60% of the medals.

“It's very hard to keep that record going without facilities. You know townships, even here in Pretoria, you take Soweto, Soweto used to have about six swimming pools, there's about one left, which is Orlando West pool.

“If you look from Kliptown right to Protea Glen through Zimhlophe up to Protea Glen there's not enough swimming pools for us to teach people to swim, create the culture of swimming."