From cheers on the track and field to cheers of a different
kind, Jamaican sprinting champion Usain Bolt was in South Africa recently to
launch his signature champagne.



Widely considered the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, the
nine-time Olympic gold medalist who has broken records, is now breaking new
ground in the business world.



He was in South Africa in January to launch a limited
edition champagne in collaboration with champagne producer G.H. Mumm.



Having graced some of the world’s biggest Olympic stadiums,
the retired Jamaican sprinter was at the swanky The Maslow hotel in
Johannesburg, promoting the pink bubbly as it poured endlessly into fluted
glasses. 



As the $45 Mumm Olympe Rosé bottle was being passed around,
all attention was on the world champion.&nbsp;




“In Jamaica, we do this naturally; we mix cognac with
champagne, and it’s something I enjoy. So when we sat down in the first meeting
and we were trying to figure out what direction we wanted to go with for the bottle
and with the drink, I mentioned it and asked ‘is it possible?’ and they said
‘yes’. So for me, that was something I was happy about. When you taste it,
you’ll taste the cognac and together it’s very nice, trust me,” Bolt tells
FORBES AFRICA, aptly marketing his product.



The A-list sports star poses with two bottles, symbolic of
the two years it took to create what he calls a premium drink. 



G. H. Mumm’s Senior Global Brand Manager, Etienne Cassuto,
says collaborations of this magnitude have to be a reflection of authenticity
and teamwork. 



“This is not something we created and said ‘great, put your
name on it, sign it and we sell it’; he created this wine with us and that is
why it is something that is truly collaborative and that is where some brands
get it wrong,” he says.&nbsp; 



“It took a long time to really get to know Usain Bolt&#8230; as
an athlete, as someone who has broken records and who has surpassed everything
in life to get to where he is today. This desire to partner with Usain Bolt,
who is now a retired athlete but still pushing the limit to what he can achieve
and really daring himself to go beyond to find his next victory… that is why
since 2016, we have been collaborating to try and understand how we can build
something in common.”



Bolt, who retired from athletics in 2017, has since pursued
a career in football; he decided to hang up his boots in 2018. 



His short-lived football career saw him play for Central
Coast Mariners, and train in South Africa with Mamelodi Sundowns F.C. 



The Olympic sprint champion says athletes should focus on
building a brand beyond the track.



“In sports, I was always trying to be the best and do things
that have never been done before, it is the same thing in business. You have to
find things that no one has done before… As athletes, you should focus on
trying to build your brand. Try to work hard and try to develop a personality. 



“I think I get sponsorships because I have a personality. I
am different, and I stand out. Develop a personality, a brand that people know,
this is Bolt, this is Simbine, this is Wayde. I always tell Wayde ‘it is good
to be fast and to be great, but if you want to build your brand you have to
show your personality’. People will want you to be a part of their brand’,” he
tells us. 



Akani Simbine and Wayde van Niekerk are South African
athletes.



&nbsp;And Bolt loves South
Africa. “When they called and told me we are launching in South Africa, I was
happy. Last year, I had so much fun. The energy was different. It felt like
home because this is the only place I have been to that I have danced so much.
In Jamaica, we dance a lot, but in Africa, you guys dance. A lot!” he says
joyfully. 



The whole vibe is that of celebration.



“Africa is an exciting market for champagne. African
consumers want more premium goods; they want to really discover new things, new
products, new categories and they want to spend a little more to discover
high-quality products, whether it is luxury or premium goods,” adds Cassuto.



South Africa’s affluent market is no different, and Bolt
attests to that – the man fast on the track and faster with his soundbites.

Maison Mumm Launches Unprecedented Zero Gravity Bottle

The Bolt And The Beautiful

He used to run for the United States’ athletic team, he reintroduced Nike to South Africa, and was the agent for two of the continent’s biggest athletes: Oscar Pistorius and Caster Semenya. It’s an impressive résumé but Ray Wicksell is more excited about his latest venture – selling bus handles.
“What I was taught by Nike is to look at unique things. Things that are different to anything else and easy to sell,” says Wicksell.
He realized he could strike gold with the bus handles while in China. Brands across the world’s most populous country use these safety handles to market themselves. Wicksell couldn’t believe there weren’t any in his adopted country, South Africa, so he brought them here. He&#8217;s also introduced them to buses in Mauritius.
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“Other South Africans probably saw it in China, but they never thought about bringing it here. It’s not easy… When I go to Mauritius, I’ve got to find the buses. I’ve got to do the deal first with the transportation department and then I’ve got to find the sponsors,” he says.
Finding sponsors is the easy part, he says. His business, Ray Wicksell Consultancy, specializes in marketing and training. His skill in building brands was forged at Nike.
“I learned that people are bigger than the brand. How you treat people. [Nike Co-Founder] Phil Knight wanted people to love you. He said ‘go out there and get people to love you. If they love you, they’ll buy from you.’ You have to spend time with them.”
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Nike used global superstars, like Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi and Tiger Woods, to promote their brand. They would spend their weekends in malls signing autographs and posing for photos. Wicksell claims some of the athletes in South Africa aren’t willing to do this.
“South African athletes aren’t very professional. I’m talking all sports. They want money but they don’t want to work and that’s why we don’t have sporting heroes,” he says.
“They haven’t been groomed into the professionalism of sport. I think it’s the agents’ fault. A lot of the agents are lawyers, which is a problem for me. We separate ourselves. We had Nike lawyers and we had guys like myself, and we worked together. We’re the ones that build them into a brand, the lawyers do the contracts. Now, the lawyers are trying to build the brand and do the lawyer job. They’re doing the lawyer job great but they can’t build them into a brand… They go to brands like Nike and get the money but then they don’t utilize them, and Nike doesn’t utilize them, so nobody wins. Like Victor Matfield; nobody knew he was with Puma. I said to him ‘Victor, no one knows you’re with Puma’. He said ‘I know; they don’t even use me for an ad’.”
Wayde van Niekerk is South Africa’s biggest global sporting icon at the moment. The Olympic gold medallist and world champion athlete is seen by many as Usain Bolt’s successor yet Wicksell claims he is underutilized.
“Not everyone watches the Olympics but if they see a billboard with Wayde on it, they’ll go ‘oh wasn’t that the guy who won gold at the Olympics?’ …But ask people who sponsors Van Niekerk, they’ll start thumb sucking; some will say Nike, some will say Puma, some will say Adidas. People don’t know.”
“Adidas gives him $3 million and you don’t know who his sponsor is. How bad is that?”
Wicksell was the agent for some of South Africa’s biggest sport stars, including Pistorius and Semenya. He says being an agent is similar to being a nanny.
“I’ll do a deal for R20,000 a month and then I’ll get 10% &#8211; but I’ll have to babysit all the time. I’ve got to make sure he comes to the promotion; I’ve got to make sure he does this. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
For now, Wicksell is happy to focus on his consultancy and getting brands on the road, in buses, across Africa.

‘He gets $3 million and you don’t know who his sponsor is. How bad is that?’

When Wayde van Niekerk returned from winning a 400-meter gold medal at the World Championships in Beijing last year, only his mother Odessa was at the airport to welcome him home.
Despite this monumental achievement, he was little known outside of athletics circles. Twelve months on, he is a star on a meteoric rise and will head to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August among South Africa’s leading medal hopefuls.
Van Niekerk already holds a special piece of history as the only person to run under 10 seconds in the 100 meters, sub-20 in the 200 meters and below 44 in the 400 meters, but will focus on just one of those in Rio.
“I’m only looking to compete in the 400-meters, in the future I will look at other events. I want to get myself a solid medal and then take it from there,” Van Niekerk tells FORBES AFRICA.
Despite his impressive times, in reality his chances of medals in the other events would be very slim and he would stand next to no chance of gold competing against the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, in the two shorter distances.
<div id="attachment_4972" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4972" class="size-medium wp-image-4972" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-485252836-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" />BEIJING, CHINA &#8211; AUGUST 26: Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa crosses the finish line to win gold in the Men&#8217;s 400 metres final during day five of the 15th IAAF World Athletics Championships Beijing 2015 at Beijing National Stadium on August 26, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)</div>
Van Niekerk has already cleared a number of hurdles in his life, including a premature birth that left him fighting for his life, and he believes he can improve those times in the future.
“I believe I still have a lot more in the tank, I’ve just started racing against the best in the world,” he says. “But records are not my goals, I want to win for South Africa.”
“I am excited to show the world that South Africa belongs to be there among the world’s greatest sporting countries.”
Sitting with Van Niekerk, he cuts a determined and focused figure, confident but also humble.
He is, in a way, living the life his mother, now remarried after the deterioration of her relationship with his father, never had due to apartheid. Like her son, she was a talented sprinter competing under the banner of the non-racial South African Council on Sport (SACOS).
Whether she could have made an impact on the international stage is conjecture, but she was denied the chance to try. Van Niekerk says that knowledge drives him to succeed, hinting too that his career has healed a rift between his parents.
“What gives me an extra push is my family, the people who have played a role in getting me to where I am today. Running in my family’s name and representing them is very important to me. More recently having the whole country behind me has been great too.”
“My mom and my dad are super supportive. I appreciate the opportunity we have as a family and I’m grateful that it has brought a sense of togetherness to my family.”
“It’s got my family back together and supporting me, we are not thinking about the past but only the future. This is our moment and I am trying to make each and every one of them proud.”
Tears well in his eyes as he relays the story of his birth, at just 900 grams, and the immediate aftermath that was torture for Odessa.
“Every day she woke up, she wasn’t sure I would be alive. It makes me emotional that my mother had to go through that.”
It’s the reason Van Niekerk donated around $30,000 of his prizemoney from winning the Sportsman of the Year at the 2015 South African Sports Awards last November to the Groote Schuur Hospital’s neonatal unit, where he spent time in an incubator in 1992.
“My contribution is me trying to help others,” he says.
Life may have started out tough for Van Niekerk, but things turned when he attended famed sports school Grey College in Bloemfontein.
“Grey College created the environment for me to succeed. I had to push myself but the school aspires to sporting excellence and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone there.”
He emerged as a potential 400-meter champion in 2013 when he broke the South African record, and then took silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow a year later. It was not until his gold in Beijing that the world really started to take notice though.
“I’m very confident and comfortable in the position I’m in. I’m excited to see what lies ahead of me,” he says. “I cherish every single medal I have. I’ve got this opportunity to go out there and live out my dreams and achieve as much as I can by doing what I love.”
“When it comes to the Olympics it’s another opportunity for me to tick off another title in my career.”
Van Niekerk, who has the fourth fastest time ever in the 400-meters of 43.48, will compete in Rio against LaShawn Merritt of the United States and Kirani James of Grenada.
James has run the quickest time this year of 44.08, but Van Niekerk is just 0.03 off that time in 2016.
“I doubt any of the top three guys are going to Rio not to win the gold medal, that is certainly my vision and goal for the Olympics,” he says. “I am not thinking about any other medal at the moment, but obviously I need to go there healthy and put in my best performance.”
His chances were boosted by the opportunity to train with Bolt and fellow sprinter, Yohan Blake, in Jamaica in June.
“I feel I can learn a lot from them and can improve myself as an athlete,” he says.
Van Niekerk has also welcomed the decision of the International Olympic Committee to re-test drug samples from previous Olympics to root out those who have used banned substances.
“It’s good to know they are going out there and digging out the guys who have been cheating. It’s not a nice feeling knowing you are giving your all out there and somebody else is cheating.”
The Cape Town-born speedster admits he remembers very little of his races, but whatever happens in Rio, he can have no regrets.
“The race itself is a blank experience, I only remember the end. All stresses disappear right there. It’s about me giving my everything and leaving it all there on the track.”

Tag: Wayde van Niekerk

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Bolt And The Beautiful

‘He gets $3 million and you don’t know who his sponsor is. How bad is that?’

Fast, Furious and lucky to be alive