2017 was the year women’s sport finally got some of the respect it deserves, from men. It’s the year British tennis player Andy Murray made a statement about women in sport: that they should be treated, spoken about and assessed in the same way as men.
After losing the Wimbledon quarterfinal in July to Sam Querry, Murray was asked his views about his opponent being the first American to reach the semi-final of a Grand Slam since 2009. Rather than provide an opinion, Murray corrected the journalist by stating that Querry was the only male player to achieve that feat.
For his troubles, Murray was lauded by Serena Williams who said female players “love” him for speaking out, and she had good reason to feel that way.
At least one of Serena or her sister Venus had played in the Wimbledon final for all but three years since the 2000. In 2017, with Serena out of action on maternity leave, Venus staged a remarkable comeback from an autoimmune condition, to become the oldest Grand Slam finalist in 23 years, underlining Murray’s point.
It’s only natural that our list of sportswomen to watch in 2018 starts with a tennis player but we also look at which women to watch at three major events and a runner with a proud record to preserve.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2017/12/14/25-highest-paid-athletes-time/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The 25 Highest-Paid Athletes Of All Time</a>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">January </h3>
<div id="attachment_34988" style="width: 312px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34988" class=" wp-image-34988" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Sloane-Stephens-e1516089227656-300x198.jpg" alt="Sloane Stephens" width="302" height="199" />Sloane Stephens (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
Sloane Stephens at the Australian Open
Not only did Sloane Stephens become only the fifth unseeded player to win a Grand Slam in the Open Era when she lifted the US Open Cup in September, but she also became the first American woman whose surname is not Williams to triumph at a major tournament since 2002. Her victory was made even more impressive because in 2016, she suffered a foot injury that sidelined her for 11 months and saw her ranking plummet to 957.
More important than Stephens’ victory for herself, was her emergence as a role-model for scores of young black African women. Stephens comes from a rich sporting pedigree – her father was an NFL player and her mother, a swimmer – and has been playing tennis since the age of nine. Though her form dipped towards the end of 2017, she has already shown she knows how to return strongly.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">February </h3>
<div id="attachment_34989" style="width: 307px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34989" class=" wp-image-34989" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Bobsled-300x218.jpg" alt="" width="297" height="216" />Bobsled (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
Nigerian Bobsled Team at the Winter Olympics 
It’s unusual for Africa to be represented at the Winter Olympics, because the continent does not have the same lengthy period of cold (and often snow) needed for sports like ice-hockey and skiing but three Nigerian women, Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere, and Akuoma Omeoga, aim to change that. The project is driven by Adigun, who once dreamed of becoming the first woman in the NBA, then changed her focus first to sprinting and now to bobsled – a sport in which teams of between two or four members make their way down twisting iced tracks on an engine-less sled.
Bobsled is an expensive pursuit that requires specialized equipment and training gear and, to that end, Adigun launched a gofundme campaign to raise $75,000 to aid her cause. The trio trained in western Canada and clocked impressive times in their first two qualifying events.
At the time of writing, they were placed 12th out of 13 participants in the North American Cup but with the cut off for the Winter Games only in January, they may have a surprise up their sleeves and could yet appear in South Korea.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">April</h3>
<div id="attachment_34990" style="width: 313px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34990" class=" wp-image-34990" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Mary-Keitany-e1516089513151-300x221.jpg" alt="" width="303" height="223" />Mary Keitany (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
Mary Keitany at the London Marathon 
Think Kenya and you automatically think of runners and Mary Keitany is one of the country’s finest and quickest. A seasoned marathoner, Keitany has claimed gold medals everywhere from Seville to Delhi but she seems to save her best for the biggest races. She has won the London Marathon four times, and in 2017 broke the record for a women-only marathon, finishing in a time of 2:17:01. Doubtless, she will return to the event with an intent to dominate.
Also keep an eye out for her later in the year in November when the New York Marathon takes place. Keitany won the race in 2014, 2015 and 2016 but could not notch up a fourth consecutive win in 2017, finishing second to Shalane Flanagan. Pre-race, Keitany was tipped to win and to break the course record, something she will want to go back for in 2018.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">July-August </h3>
<div id="attachment_34991" style="width: 313px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34991" class=" wp-image-34991" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Hockey-women-e1516089633699-300x204.jpg" alt="" width="303" height="206" />Photo by Getty Images</div>
South Africa’s Women’s Hockey Team at the Hockey World Cup
The only African women’s team at the Hockey World Cup, South Africa have historically been the continent’s strongest with stick in hand. They’ve qualified for the last five World Cups with a highest-placed finish of 7th in 1998, and have been the only African side at the event since Nigeria in 1978. But that does not mean it’s all plain sailing for them.
Though South Africa is better resourced then some of the other teams in Africa, they have also had recent hiccups. At the African Hockey Cup of Nations, played in Egypt in October 2017, the women’s team had to share a coach with the South African men’s side, but still managed to go on and win the event.
Impressively, they put 24 goals past their opposition and did not concede any, to maintain a clean sheet for the duration of the event.  South Africa won all four of their group stage games and beat Ghana in the final.
Better news for the South African Women’s team is that they have smoothly transitioned from one corporate backer to another. Investec sponsored them for five years from 2009 to 2014 and when they chose not to renew their affiliation, Private Property stepped in.
<h3 style="text-align: center;">November </h3>
<div id="attachment_34993" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34993" class="size-medium wp-image-34993" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Janine-van-Wyk-Banyana-e1516090229593-300x213.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="213" />Janine van Wyk during the international friendly between South Africa and Ghana. (Photo by Gallo Images)</div>
African Women Cup of Nations 
The continent’s favorite sport, football, will dominate 2018, with all eyes on Russia mid-year to see if an African country can finally go beyond the last eight at a World Cup. Then, attention will turn to qualification for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations but the year will end with the African Women’s Championship in Ghana from November 17.
Unlike the men’s competition, which has been expanded to 24 teams from the usual 16, the women’s event is played between only eight teams which make the qualification, which will be contested among 24 teams, almost as important as the tournament itself.
It’s a two-stage process, the first of which will see 20 teams play off against each other over two legs with winners progressing to a second round, where the four highest-ranked African women’s sides, Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa, have been automatically included. The 10 winners and the four other teams will then have home and away play-offs, with the seven victors joining Ghana in the main tournament but the pressure does not stop there.
As important as being crowned queens of the continent is, there is also an added incentive to make it as far as the semi-finals. The finalists and the winner of the usually bland third-place playoff will qualify for the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France.
Only two countries have won the tournament in its 27 year history. Nigeria are 10-time and defending champions while Equatorial Guinea were crowned champions twice. &#8211; Written by Firdose Moonda

Top Sport Stars In 2018

When the moneyed giants of the hockey world came to Africa they came with medical teams and salaries. When Africa&#8217;s number one team, South Africa, took to the pitch they had to answer emails, design apps, and study at the side of the pitch.
Another contrast, champions Belgium could afford to hand out shirts to supporters. The South African team – struggled to get time off to play.
One of these working South African players is Lonwabo Owen Mvimbi, a recruitment consultant for Mindcor group, a midfielder with 40 caps for his country. While the Belgian professionals were taking ice baths and putting their feet up in between matches, Mvimbi was sending emails, going to work and catching up on missed training in the dark of night.
&#8220;I was lucky that work was 10 minutes from the hotel, and five minutes from the field. I was doing that trip constantly, at least three times a week,&#8221; says midfielder Mvimbi.
&#8220;On the days I wasn&#8217;t playing a game, I would be at work the whole day. When people were doing video sessions [studying opponents] in the day, I would be doing it at night, when I was done with work for the day. On match days I would spend maybe an hour in the office, and then do work emails from the hotel. It wasn&#8217;t too bad, I could come and go to the office, everyone at work knew what I was doing and they were very supportive of it.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_33414" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33414" class=" wp-image-33414" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Lonwabo-Mvimbi_JC-3-e1504710615390-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="433" />Lonwabo Owen Mvimbi (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
Over 16 days, Mvimbi and the rest of the stressed South African squad fought it out with the elite of the world game on the astroturf at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg. Here 10 countries competed in the semifinals of the International Hockey Federation Hockey World League (HWL), one of the largest international hockey tournaments on the globe. Up for grabs was a coveted qualification spot for the 2018 World Cup and a ticket to the 2017 HWL finals in India.
For the South Africans, this was a rare chance for amateurs and semi-professionals – teachers, students, and real estate agents – to take on top players, who do this for a living, in their own backyard.
&#8220;Most of us are students or working. I&#8217;d say seven out of the squad are professional players,&#8221; says Mvimbi.
It was never going to be easy. South Africa (rank 15) needed to finish in fifth place; a single win against the likes of Belgium (5), Ireland (10), Germany (3) and their African rivals Egypt (19) would have put them in good stead.
&#8220;The difficulty in this is there is pressure from both sides; to perform at work and to perform on the field,&#8221; says Mvimbi.
The 29-year-old Mvimbi is playing hockey by chance. When he was 15 he broke his collarbone playing rugby at school and had to change sports.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve made a lot of financial sacrifices. Because of my hockey, my career grows slowly. I&#8217;m more focused on my sports career, even though my hockey career is going to end soon, maybe in the next five years, whereas my work is going to continue,&#8221; says Mvimbi.
South Africa was under-prepared. The team had a year to build a side to beat the best. Yet, team selections were held three weeks before the tournament and the squad got together three days before kick-off.
This is not new. In the last two years, South Africa has managed to hold a mere three training camps.
&#8220;With the pace of world hockey at the moment, if you miss a two-year cycle, then you fall off the pace quite a bit. Due to funding issues, it&#8217;s been hard to stay together as a squad. People are staying at other players’ houses to save [money],&#8221; says Austin Smith, a senior South African player who reached a milestone 150 caps during the tournament.
&#8220;For a whole year, our squad didn’t even see each other, we didn’t do anything together. Then you see the differences when you meet up again, the connections just aren’t there. You need to re-grow those connections from player to coach all over again,&#8221; says Smith.
<div id="attachment_33415" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33415" class=" wp-image-33415" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Austin-Smith_JC-3-e1504710813443-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="433" />Austin Smith (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
Smith is one of a handful of South African players to play overseas. With 12 years’ experience, the former captain Smith lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he is contracted to Dutch side HC Den Bosch and the Hockey India League&#8217;s Delhi Waveriders. The Dutch league is considered to be one of the strongest leagues in the world; here it is usual for clubs to run with hundreds of members and some clubs have as many as eight astroturf pitches. In Africa, you are lucky to have one.
&#8220;Our club side, at junior level, is going to train four times a week in addition to mental training and   conditioning work. The level of professionalism goes all the way down,&#8221; says Smith.
When Smith first sent his CV to Europe, clubs weren&#8217;t interested.
&#8220;Initially, when I went to Den Bosch, I was too arrogant. I had just become the national captain, I had 50 caps. I thought surely I will be able to get a contract in the Netherlands. I wrote to all the hockey clubs and they all said no.&#8221;
&#8220;A month later the Den Bosch coach wrote back and said we could maybe use you as a defender and you would basically be playing for free. So I had accommodation and a few Euros and that was it. I had to go and prove myself.&#8221;
Smith believes Africa needs to catch up.
&#8220;In South Africa we can be guilty of choosing players who can do flashy things at a young age. In my opinion, we should be identifying players who we think are going to be able to become professional.  If you look at the stats of players going from the under-16 national team to the men’s national team, it is actually small,&#8221; says Smith.
There is latent talent in South African school hockey which is growing thanks to more astroturf pitches. Most of the senior South African players, like Smith, grew up playing hockey on bumpy grass.
&#8220;If I look at the ability of the squad coming into the side, compared to when I was entering the squad in 2004, the guys now are far more skillful than I ever was. It’s hugely positive and it shows now that most schools have a strong influence. Schools, these days, have access to an astroturf. For half the hockey population, when I was growing up, that definitely wasn’t the case.&#8221;
Back on the astroturf at Wits, as many as 14,972 fans braved cold nights to watch the best of the best. For such a critical tournament, an unprepared side was the last thing South Africa wanted.
&#8220;Being forced to choose between work and life over playing what you love the most is hard. If it was paid, everyone would be here,&#8221; says Mark Sanders, a South Africa National Selector.
&#8220;It&#8217;s highly frustrating. I can understand [coach Fabian Gregory&#8217;s] frustration levels, when you can only have a team meeting at this time because some players who are Joburg based are working. Even the guys who aren&#8217;t working, you&#8217;ve got students who need to study. It&#8217;s not the easiest time being in a professional sport,&#8221; says Sanders.
On the field, the difference was brutal. Against the slick and salaried Belgium, who picked up a silver medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics, South Africa lost 9-1.
&#8220;It boils down to how long a camp scenario is. Our last camp was three days, whereas if you look at the Belgium camp it was 21 days,&#8221; says Sanders.
In other games versus Germany and Ireland, South Africa showed signs of promise. The team had many chances but couldn&#8217;t come home with a win. The team lacked the consistency and confidence needed to win.
&#8220;When you are in a high-pressure moment, you don’t have time to think, you need to move instinctually. You see a ball move in a direction and your body knows it’s got to run to a certain place, because you have done it 10,000 times before,&#8221; says Smith.
&#8220;When those things don’t come naturally, especially with how fast the international level has become, you don’t have time to react. That’s the biggest difference between the top teams and everybody else, they can play far quicker than the lower teams can.&#8221;
Money is a more difficult opponent. There is next to no budget for South African hockey and the men&#8217;s side has failed to secure a major sponsor for years. The players have to chip in for the millions needed to play overseas.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve spent R12,000 this year to play for my country,&#8221; says Jethro Eustice.
<div id="attachment_33417" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33417" class=" wp-image-33417" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Jethro-Eustice_JC-e1504711244931-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="650" height="433" />Jethro Eustice (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
Eustice, who has 80 caps for South Africa, was also working over the tournament. When he wasn&#8217;t on the field playing for his country, he was designing an app for generic drug company Aspen. In addition to completing a master’s degree in  IT commerce, Eustice also coaches the women&#8217;s team at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Pietermaritzburg.
&#8220;You would think I would be sitting around in front of a computer, rather than on the hockey field. If you want to be a professional hockey player, you can&#8217;t do it South Africa. I am coaching to keep my playing profession going,&#8221; says Eustice.
Eustice believes that televising university hockey has helped.
&#8220;That&#8217;s what&#8217;s nice for the under-18 guys. They are finishing matric and looking to go to university to play hockey and continue their studies. High performance programs have changed the university level. That&#8217;s why the standard has been raised. We are looking at athletes. When we were around, there were maybe 14 athletes and then the other four were just there to enjoy the party. Now it&#8217;s 18 athletes that have to be physically ready and technically ready to play. The sides that don&#8217;t have that tend to fall short by the end of the week.”
Overall most say hockey is struggling. In the high-pressure match against Egypt the lack of experience showed. Egypt, South Africa&#8217;s nearest rivals, should have been an easy win. Instead they lost 3-2.
&#8220;There needs to be a wake-up call and we need to be cognizant of it. It&#8217;s frustrating times,&#8221; says Sanders.
&#8220;Has hockey progressed in the last four years? To be honest, I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;m a firm believer it has. We&#8217;ve had some good results at the summer series against the likes of Germany and Belgium, our result against Germany [lost 4-3] the other night was incredible. But it’s once every now and then, and I think that&#8217;s the frustrating part. If we cannot consistently beat a side like Egypt I think we’ve got to seriously have a look at ourselves, from selection to player performance, to management performance, the whole lot.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_33416" style="width: 661px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33416" class=" wp-image-33416" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SAhockey_JC-e1504711033792-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="651" height="432" />South Africa&#8217;s hockey team (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
There is also the task of finding a new national coach. Gregory resigned to take up the position of Head Coach at the Valley Hockey Club in Hong Kong.
&#8220;Playing overseas doesn&#8217;t help us. It may help on an individual basis, the players that go overseas go over and learn a lot and play to exceptionally high standards. But we don&#8217;t get to have them here for all the major competitions here. If we could manage our calendars, we could put our best players forward,&#8221; says Sanders.
The tournament could have been the wake-up call South African hockey needs.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got a lot of competitions coming up. We&#8217;ve got the All–Africa Games, we&#8217;ve got the Commonwealth Games, we&#8217;ve got Olympics 2020 to look forward to. The decisions need to happen right now,&#8221; says Sanders.
It can be done. As a last thought Belgium did not participate in world class level hockey before 2008, the year they qualified for the Olympics for the first time in 32 years. Nine years on, thanks to salaries and better organization, they are a superpower at the top of the hockey heap. Maybe Africa should take note.

‘I’ll Email You Back Once I’ve Scored This Goal’

It was the strangest tournament that Warren Bond ever played in. He was in Egypt, playing for South Africa, against four of the world’s hockey nations. Their hosts had put them up in a military hotel; outside Bond’s window was a parked fighter jet. Every now and again a tank rumbled past. A police escort took them to the stadium.
Their matches were just as daunting. The stadium in Cairo was empty but for a small bunch of men in suits and ties including Hosni Mubarak, being a big hockey fan, says Bond.
When the final game came, Bond but his fellow South Africans could see nothing but angry soldiers.
“We got to the stadium thinking it was going to be completely empty but it was full. Every spectator was in military uniform. It was quite intimidating. They had been given instructions that whenever an Egyptian got the ball they went mad and the crowd would be silent when we had the ball. You couldn’t script it,” says Bond.
The silence was deafening as South Africa scored the winning goal. As the ball hit the net a sublime moment turned bizarre when Gregg Clark celebrated.
“I won’t show you what he did, but basically he ran along the sidelines abusing and shouting at all the spectators. We were shouting ‘Clarky they’re the army, they’re lethal, they’ve got guns. What the hell are you doing?’” he says.
Bond remembers Clark’s victory dance before the Egyptian army like it was yesterday. He last played for South Africa in 2003 where he clocked up 64 caps, five of them as captain.
Few hockey players these days can say they have beaten Australia twice and been to the Commonwealth Games, but Bond can. He was even supposed to have gone to the 2000 Sydney Olympics until the National Olympic Committee of South Africa pulled the side three months before the event, saying there were not enough players of color.
Then in March, he got the call. His country needed him again. He was called to play for the South African Masters side, a team for those that are 40 years and above. They needed him to brush the dust off his boots and play in the FIH Masters World Cup in The Hague, Netherlands.
“It used to be you would be called up to a squad, then you would go to national camp and at the end of it you would wait, praying for your name to called out by the selectors. If they did, you would go and play for South Africa. Now, your mates call you up and say ‘hey, you’ve been selected to play for South Africa for your age-group’. And you’re like ‘well how did I get selected?’ and they say ‘no we just decided that it would be cool if you joined the team,’” says Bond.
In the 10 year gap between internationals, Bond had not been idle. He has completed the Comrades Marathon twice, a grueling 89-kilometer road race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
South African hockey players have to work. It simply doesn’t pay. When he was in his heydays as an international player, Bond worked as a chartered accountant. He also founded Sport For All, a franchise operation which has 15 sports coaching businesses running in South African townships. On the business side he invested in Luminous, a banking innovations technology company which revolutionized online accounting with First National Bank (FNB).
“One of my partners got tired of capturing bank statements and recapturing the same data later on. We thought this made no sense, there had to be a smarter way, so why not get the banks to do this? We invested in it and landed up with FNB as a customer,” he says.
Bond also created an innovation matchmaking site, called Matchi. It helps connect entrepreneurs with banks.
“I’ve seen it. People can spend two years talking to the wrong people at a bank, spending millions and millions of rands.”
It’s a sign of his outdoor life that the idea was born nowhere near an office or a bank, but on a river to Mandalay in the jungles of Burma. Another entrepreneurial venture was born while hiking the Himalayas below Mount Everest.
“It’s minus 15 degrees outside and you have your piece of chipboard and your little mattress. You wake up and everything is frozen, it’s an amazing place for ideas.”
From the road to Mandalay to a small piece of astroturf in the Johannesburg winter where aging hockey stars play. Bond takes to hockey like a fish returning to water. For a moment it could be Cairo in 2000, instead it’ll be in The Hague in 2014 when he pops off a few skilful moves with his dusty old stick.
“I am not too worried about the fitness; I am a bit worried about converting it to the sprinting which is a different ball game,” he quips.
“It’s a bunch of mates you see once a year. What’s more you get to compete against some of the people you played against internationally, under more relaxed circumstances. It’s different at Masters. You are going there knowing you will have a few beers with them after them game. You couldn’t have too many of those when you were in the middle of a series against Australia,” says Bond.
His return to hockey will be less daunting. This time, Bond won’t be in the middle of stadium of mean sounding soldiers.

‘They’ve Got Guns,  What The Hell Are You Doing?’

Francois Pienaar holding aloft the William Webb Ellis trophy. Graeme Smith clutching the ICC Test mace. Cameron van der Burgh grinning proudly, gold medal between his teeth, after setting a new world record in the breaststroke.
These are some of South Africa’s most memorable sporting moments. They happen at world cups, at Olympic Games and when a team reaches the top of the world rankings. And South Africa’s national women’s hoc-key side want one of their own.
They compete in the Africa Nations Cup in Nairobi this month, a competition they have won for the past five years. This time, however, victory will be only the beginning of a far more important mission. The top two teams in the tournament will progress to next year’s World Cup in Holland – and it’s there that the South Africans want to make their mark.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5788" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2013-Oct-001-002-CONT-004-242x300.jpg" alt="" width="242" height="300" />
Previously, the team’s success in Africa has not translated into similar achievements on the global stage. South Africa’s best finish in a World Cup is seventh place, and that was 15 years ago. But the steady progress they have made recently holds the promise of a stronger showing this year.
“We’ve been at this process for three years. And now we’re looking for the results to show it,” says Sanani Mangisa, the team’s first choice goalkeeper.
Since 2010, the team have been under the tutorship of Giles Bonnet, a former player for the national men’s side and, with almost three decades’ experience, a renowned coach. When he took over, Bonnet vowed to turn South Africa into a top-six country, a challenge he acknowledged; the team were ranked 12th in the world at the time.
Mangisa describes Bonnet as the best coach she has worked with, because he has “brought a new level of skills to the unit, to make sure we are technically better”.
Bonnet’s secret weapons are camps in China, where he has established close relationships with the hockey elite. He has a deal to use facilities in the Lüshunkou District in the south, where a world class facility has recently been built at a cost of $19.3 million.
“It’s a place where we can really be tested and all areas of weakness are highlighted,” he explains.
After a training camp in June, the team played in a world hockey league tournament in London, which did not end well. South Africa finished seventh out of eight teams.
“We need to close the gap between ourselves and European teams,” Mangisa says.
Bonnet agrees, and points out that hockey is “big business” in Europe. “Each team has many specialist coaches and support staff to assist in creating the perfect environment.”
The geography allows for inter-national competition to take place frequently. Some South African players have tried to ply their trade overseas to gain experience. Pietie Coetzee, perhaps the country’s best-known hockey player, spent some time in the Netherlands in 2007.
But Mangisa says getting a contract in Europe is not easy, and language barriers make it a lonely experience. There is an upside, however: “The big advantage is the salaries. You can live off being a player there.” The same cannot be said for South Africa, where many members of the national team try to hold down jobs while they are in training.
“I think that’s why we see many players coming through while they’re still at university. I did a three-year degree over five years so I could concentrate on my hockey as well,” Mangisa explains.
She was still a student when she was chosen for the Olympic team in 2008. South Africa finished the tournament in 11th place. Four years later, she was part of the squad that went to London. That year South Africa went one better and finished in 10th spot.
But Mangisa would like to see them get within reach of a medal in Rio. She believes the maturity of the squad could help them punch above their weight.
“We’ve taken juniors with us on tours, even if they are just part of the squad and don’t play, so they can get a feel for the unit and how we work. The big feeder system is from the universities and we’ve seen now, the under-21 team has done very well,” she points out.
South Africa’s women’s under-21 side finished eighth in the junior World Cup. That bodes well for a strong Nations Cup, World Cup and then Olympics. The country’s women’s sides have consistently outperformed their male counterparts at the Olympics, even if it is by finishing one place higher, as they did in London last year.
Mangisa admits the women’s results do not have as much to do with girl power as they do with a packed schedule.
“It’s about the amount of international hoc-key we play compared to the men’s team. We go to a lot more tournaments in a year because we have the money to do that, through our sponsor.”
Where other corporates may view women’s sport as a commodity best kept at arm’s length, Investec saw an opportunity.
“It is a commercially uncluttered market. The quality of sport is high and sportswomen have enabled us to appeal to a wider audience and engage in benefits not typically offered by men’s sporting codes,” explains Investec’s Janet Larson.
The sponsorship agreement does not set specific performance targets, however, Investec says it is satisfied that the team have “met their expectations over the past three years”. Their contract comes up for renewal at the end of the year and Larsen has confirmed that Investec is “in discussions regarding future opportunities”.

SA hockey team up their game

It is one of those crisp winter days that Zimbabwe is famous for. There is not a cloud in the sky, the ground is hard and the grass brown under the thunder of hockey boots. On the touchline, Trish Davies is knee deep in the sport she loves. Here, at Watershed College—a private school in Marondera, 60 kilometers from Harare—Davies barks instructions to her team, Chisipite Girls, as her charges battle to draw.
It has been more than 30 African winters since Davies and her teammates tasted sweet triumph against the odds in Moscow in one of the world’s great sporting stories. They called them the Golden Girls—the team that won glory for their fledgling country and partied in the Kremlin afterwards.
As the slick London Olympics unfolded on television, 55-year-old Davies watched with warm and fond memories of another Olympics in a far off world.
It was May 1980; Zimbabwe was just weeks old and the Russians were in Harare looking for a favor. Most of the country’s hockey players laughed when they heard Russia wanted to fly them to take part in the Olympics—surely not?
For the Russians it was no joke. Their Olympics in Moscow was in disarray. Most of the world boycotted the Games in protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The Russians had toured the world, looking for replacements and wanted Zimbabwe to send a team to make up the numbers in the first ever women’s field hockey event.
“Like any other sport, politics interferes. Whoever is in power is there because he deserves to be there,” says Davies.
“Russia was a top side, England didn’t come, there were quite a few countries that didn’t come, even the USA, that’s their tough luck.”
In a matter of weeks, Zimbabwe trained a 15-strong team to travel to take on hockey teams which had been training for years. In the context of the time, it was even more remarkable; on April 18, just weeks before, Bob Marley sang at Rufaro Stadium in Harare of revolutionaries and Africans liberating Zimbabwe, to a sea of clenched fists, as the union flag came down on colonial rule. Now, here was an all-white team, playing a game with colonial roots as deep as an oak tree, representing the new nation.
On July 8, less than two weeks before the Olympics, the team boarded a World War II Dakota cargo plane at Manyame Air Force base in Harare. The plane stank because it had been used to transport meat.
“We boarded a cargo aircraft together with four members of the Zimbabwe under-23 soccer team who had been invited to the Games. Team spirit started at the airport, where we shared everything we had, including drinking water from the same bottle. The football players including, Shepherd Murape, turned out to be our best supporters,” player-coach, Anthea Stewart remembers.
“It was the first time I had boarded a Dakota, we sat opposite each other,” Davies laughs.
The plane touched down in Zambia where a Russian Aeroflot passenger plane flew the team to a sunny Olympics in Moscow.
“It was quite frightening, all the cabin crew were dressed in khaki and no-one smiled,” says Brenda Howden, who played right half.
Once there, the Zimbabweans heard they were to play on a new surface called astroturf.
“When we left we didn’t know how to play on astroturf. We were just honored to be there playing for the country&#8230;For a start, it was the first time hockey had ever been played at the Olympics, two, Zimbabwe was in it. Everyone of our sportsmen came to see us… it was such an amazing feeling,” says Davies.
The team had to rush out to buy new boots, for a new surface, before the first game against Poland in the round robin tournament.
“That first match was very nerve-wracking because we had not played on that kind of turf, we didn’t know how the opposition was going to play. We had a different style of hockey to the overseas teams. We had very much possession style of hockey. They were a lot quicker than us. With us playing that kind of hockey, that’s how we eventually managed to win gold,” says Davies.
Zimbabwe thrashed Poland 4-0 and in the next game was held 2-2 by Czechoslovakia; then, the hosts, Russia, one of the favorites for the gold. Zimbabwe won 2-0.
“We beat Russia, that was the biggest thing because they had been training for four years and we had been training for just three months,” says Davies
There was a draw against India, then the last game against one of the strongest teams in the tournament. Back home, in Zimbabwe, people took radios to work so they could listen to the game.
“We played Austria in the final match; we had to win to get gold. If we had drawn, we would have silver. By half time we were up 3-0, we sort of knew then that it was ours. During the second half we were smiling a lot, but playing a bit of defensive hockey. We weren’t gonna let them come near us,” she says.
Pat McKillop, who later became a golfer for Matabeleland, scored twice in the final. Overall, the housewife from Bulawayo, who had just turned 24, scored half of Zimbabwe’s 12 goals.
“Pat was a short corner specialist and used to ram them into the back of the net. She had such composure on the field and was a huge role model for me,” says Howden.
The final whistle went and Zimbabwe had won 4-1. The team danced around the pitch with tears streaming down their faces as supporters and fellow Olympians in the stands chanted: “Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe!”
“It was amazing, absolutely amazing, you couldn’t believe it,” says Davies.
Even more amazing was that the referee sprinted off the pitch, after blowing the final whistle, and returned with a bottle of champagne that she popped and passed around the winning team. You could imagine the Olympic committee would take a very dim view of this in 2012.
News agencies reported that some of the members from the victorious team, between gulps of champagne, shouted: “Pamberi ne Jongwe.” It means ‘forward the cockerel’—the symbol of the ruling party, ZANU PF—in ChiShona which is the majority language in Zimbabwe. This report drew a ripple of laughter when Parliament, back in Harare, paused to announce the victory over Austria. This was indeed another world.
The fairy tale was complete as the captain Ann Grant, the 25-year-old bookkeeper from Harare, led her team to the podium to collect the gold medal. Before they left Moscow, the team rubbed shoulders with fellow gold medallists, including Sebastian Coe and Daley Thompson, at a party at the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin.
They flew home to a crowd of family and friends at Harare Airport. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, who had been in charge of Zimbabwe for less than two months, saw the surprise win as fillip for the spirit of his new nation.
“We went to his house, it was an afternoon event, he [Mugabe] put on a lovely show for us. It was an honor for the country, we weren’t expecting anything, nothing, none of us were professionals, and we had done it for the country. Sportsmen, that’s how they see it.”
A cheerful Davies, who works in accounts in Harare, says she was thin when she played in Moscow and claims anyone who saw her then wouldn’t recognise her now. Davies is one of a handful of the team of 1980 to remain in Zimbabwe—the rest are scattered from Durban to Dubai.
“Tell you what; I am just coming back to hockey now. I’m not a professional, I have been doing bowling of late,” she says.
“I’m quite happy to come back, it was quite pleasing to come back and help people to play the game.”
As Zimbabwe went into economic meltdown all sports suffered, including hockey. The country is now rebuilding its showcase, Khumalo Hockey Stadium, in Bulawayo, in the hope of staging more tournaments.
“It is getting better now. Hockey is getting back. There was a stage where it had gone right down, especially in the schools, from the schools I think it can now grow,” says Davies.
The Olympic event itself has grown out of proportion. Davies and her team played purely for the love of the game; athletes these days play for money as well as glory. While there was a United States boycott in 1980 over Afghanistan—there has been no such talk in 2012, despite the US, Britain and a dozen other countries which still have troops in the country. It is funny how times change.

You Couldn’t Believe It

There are few dreams bigger than competing at the Olympic Games and for the Investec South Africa Women’s hockey team, that dream was nearly shattered.
Despite winning the Africa Cup in 2011 and meeting the International Olympic Committee standards for qualification, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) decided the competition had not been good enough and they should qualify again for the Games, which start in July.
What a crushing blow to the team and management. The message they were given could be summed up as: “Sorry, we’re not sure you’re good enough, so you’ll have to try again.”
SASCOC’s stringent qualification requirements, however, were standard across all sports to ensure those representing the country are genuine medal contenders.
So much for the underdog and outsiders having a chance. It leads one to wonder if SASCOC has ever heard of upsets in sport. Any child excelling at an Olympic sport would simply like the opportunity to participate in the Games. To have a local set of double standards is fair neither on the individual nor the team.
The women’s hockey team, to their credit, did not let the disappointment get to them as they went out to re-qualify in a gruelling nine-day tournament in Delhi in February. Again, they made it.
Led by 28-year-old captain Marsha Marescia, who was named Player of the Tournament, the South Africans prevailed in the final over a strong Indian side that had beaten them in the past. “I think if you were given the opportunity to go to the Olympic Games and all you had to do was win one event, you would give everything,” said Marescia before the tournament.
“All the teams participating are going to go flat out, but I think that with our mix of youth and experience, we are feeling confident.”
Teammate Kim Hubach said it was a relief when her side made it over the final hurdle and hinted at SASCOC’s curveball. “It was a feeling you can’t describe; months of hard work had finally paid off. The road to London has not been easy but we have grown as a team and beaten the odds.
“I would go to war with these girls. We have grown so close; they’re like a second family.”
The men’s team found themselves in the same situation. They too won the Africa Cup last year, but were forced to take part in a similar qualifying tournament in Japan at the end of April. As with the women, the men were playing for the only spot available to book their place in the Olympic showpiece.
For SASCOC’s sake, it’s lucky they made it, beating Japan 2-1, or the sporting body would have been left trying to explain how a team a fraction outside the top 10 (South Africa is ranked 12th in the world)—and which previously qualified—was not good enough to go to London.

Tag: Hockey

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