SASCOC promises to offer big incentives to Team SA Olympic medalists

SASCOC on Wednesday introduced 39 athletes from seven different sporting codes at the Olympic House in Johannesburg, with the final additions to the 230-member squad to be disclosed in June and July.

SASCOC boss Barry Hendricks revealed gold medallists will receive R400 000, plus R100 000 for their coaches, while silver medallists will earn R200 000 and R50 000 for their coaches, and bronze medallists will get R75 000, and R25 000 for their coaches.

"As I mentioned this is the first batch, there are other bigger squads such as the women's rugby and so on. So, for us this is an exciting time because this is now where we can really build the hype and the buzz around Team South Africa in the build up to the Olympics. 72 days to go, we are looking forward to bringing South Africa together around Team SA," Hendricks said.

"Incentives have become part and parcel of delivering Team South Africa now. For Gold it's gonna be R400 000 to the athletes and R100 000 to the coach. For silver, I think it was R200 000 and R75 000 for the coach and Bronze was R75 000 and R25 000 to the coach."

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Unlike their usual practice of leaving incentive issues until late into the Olympic Games, Hendricks and his board took decisive action 72 days ahead of the Paris Games, citing their commitment to learning from past experiences.

 "You learn the lessons as you become more experienced and you create more stability by announcing at the beginning as well. They are on Operation Excellence, some of them are even on Olympics Solidarity. All that we want to do as you saw with Chad Le Clos today is to continue practicising in the build-up for Paris. So, for us it's just a matter of doing what they have been doing all the time and we will provide the support."