Factors promoting and hindering sporting success among South African former Olympians from historically disadvantaged areas

Abstract

There are various contributing factors to sporting success among elite athletes, including Olympians. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the enablers and/or barriers to sporting success among South African former Olympians from historically disadvantaged areas (HDAs) using the SPLISS framework. This would enable an understanding of the factors that lead to sporting success among athletes from HDAs. A qualitative research design was employed for this study, whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted among 15 former Olympians who represented South Africa between the 1992 and 2016 Olympic Games. The ATLAS.ti (version 22) software tool was used to analyse the data. The study found that athletes from HDAs attributed their sporting success to the functional competition structure, sports access at community level, access to scholarships and bursaries to elite schools/universities, good coaching support and mentorship, access to local and international competitions, as well as community and peer athlete support. The highest barriers reported by athletes were inadequate financial support, a dysfunctional school sport system, lack of sports facilities, equipment and transport system, poor post-career and scientific support. Elite athletes from HDAs need consistent financial support, school/foundation level sport access, quality sports facilities, equipment, and reliable transport to training and competitions, post-career, as well as scientific support to achieve their full potential and attain international sporting success.

Factors enabling and hindering sporting success among South African elite athletes from historically disadvantaged areas: Through a coaching lens

“…This finding is consistent with that of Mthombeni et al 17 who found that most former Olympians from HDA reported a lack of financial support, especially at the development level, being among the major hindrances of sporting success in South Africa. The lack of financial support may stem from the poor budget allocation to sports by government annually.…”

“…University Sport South Africa (USSA), professional sports clubs, and academies are some of the structures that create a pathway for elite athletes to attain high-performance level. 17 Figure 1 shows a typical distribution mechanism for high-performance sport in South Africa. However, the school sport system which plays an important role for grass-roots sports development and a feeder system for elite sport in South Africa remains weak and dysfunctional as a very limited number of schools in HDA offer formalised sport programmes.…”

Sport development in rural schools of Lephalale in Limpopo province: Barriers and facilitators

“…The state of sports development in rural schools of South Africa is concerning, primarily because of the inadequate resources allocated for promoting PAs and sports (Mthombeni et al 2023 ). Consequently, there has been a substantial increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer (WHO 2020 ).…”

“…The absence of adequate sports infrastructure in numerous rural schools continues to pose a challenge, mainly because of the enduring consequences of apartheid (Mthombeni et al 2023 ). Left unaddressed, this dearth of resources may result in the departure of extraordinarily gifted athletes and ultimately affect the competitiveness and overall calibre of the national sports teams (Kruger & Pienaar 2011 ).…”