Pillay: Why SA flopped at the World Champs in USA

SA athletics legend Geraldine Pillay has blamed logistics for the country™s dismal showing at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in the USA.

South Africa™s 40-member squad that went to compete at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, USA failed to win any medals across all the track and field events for the second time after the disappointment of Doha in 2019.

Pillay, who is not one to shy away from voicing her opinion, says SA is spoiled with medals and feels logistics are to blame for the team™s poor performance.

READ: World Championship organisers attended the visa matters

She says logistics played a big part in the preparations, with a group of athletes which included SA women™s 100m record holder Carina Horn and men™s sprinter Gift Leotlela were stranded in Italy because of visa issues just days before the start of the Championships and eventually arrived in Oregon on the day of their events.

Pillay further noted that the performance in the USA is not a true reflection of the team™s ability and says the athletes should not be judged based on their failure to secure medals.

ASA management also withdrew the mixed relay team due to being jet-lagged on Day 1 of the Championships.

œThe logistics did play a part, for every hour there is a time difference you need a day to recover to a climatise and because they were flying from Europe back into time to the west it did play a part in the preparations, obvious while they were in Italy worried if they gonna get to the US or not and when they got there it was like a day and they got to run, so obviously their internal have not readjusted yet to the local time in Eugene.

"I think Like everybody saw this was just a South African problem but if you read the news articles and all of that even Sebastian Coe came and say that he is aware that lot of athletes may have missed the World Championship because of Visa application problems and because this other as a normal tourist it™s so difficult to get to the United States you must long in advance you must have an appointment and already by now when the athletes were ready to make the appointments and they knew of the selections there were no more appointments available Pillay explained.

The 44-year-old ex-sprinter has urged the country to celebrate small victories of personal bests achieved at the event, despite the lack of medals.

By Charles Baloyi