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Johann Möller
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FOREWORD BY THE PRESIDENT
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Nelson Mandela
Starting in 2007,
SA Tug-of-War has embarked on a mission to aggressively develop and market the
Tug-of-War sport in order to establish it as a “Top Ten” sport in South Africa
within ten years.
To those who believe it cannot be done, we affirm in the words
of Madiba “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Existing evidence indicates that Tug-of-War is the oldest team sport in the
world, originating in Egypt in the time of the pharoaphs.
Having originated in Africa, the national executive of SA Tug-of-War decided
that the sport needs to come back to its roots and become a sport of choice
amongst South Africans.
In order to achieve this, a strategy was developed during 2007 to systematically
develop and transform Tug-of-War into a full fledged, well organised sports
organisation – both on schools and senior level. The ultimate aim of this
strategy is to catapult the sport from its current 19th position to at least the
10th position of popular sports in South Africa within ten years (our so-called
“Top Ten in Ten” approach).
Most of 2007 was spent on establishing the structures and baseline of the
strategy as well as on marketing the plan internally.
Today, two year into the implementation of our strategy, we have already seen
amazing results. The Adopt-A-School Project – our flagship
development and transformation programme, has produced a 22% increase in our
membership base, mostly from the previously disadvantaged communities. This
project has already delivered three ethnically black national athletes. The SA
Junior Tug-of-War Championships held on 27 and 28 March 2009 saw an all-time
record of 183 school teams competing over the two days of the event (compared to
144 teams in 2008).
Project IMPI is the federation’s youth development and high
performance project aimed at the development and support of our national U/19
and U/23 teams. Jackson Wawini, Johan Booysen, Tumiza Nkanunu and Wayne Carelse
are all “PDI” athletes who benefited from the Adopt-A-School Project and are now
proud and well deserving members of the U/19 and U/23 national teams. It must be
highlighted that our U/19 national team is the current world champions and will
be defending their world title during September 2009 in the Netherlands.
Project AFRICAN QUEEN is the federation’s female development
and high performance project aimed at the development and support of our
national ladies team. During the past 18 months our ladies team competed in the
World Indoor Tug-of-War championships in Italy, the World Outdoor Tug-of-War
Championships in Sweden as well as the World Games in Taiwan. The ladies team is
currently ranked sixth in the world in the Indoor discipline of the sport whilst
it holds a very credible fourth place ranking in the outdoor discipline. “PDI”
athletes in the national ladies team are Catherine Ndlovu, Olympia Keswa and
Ayanda Ikaneng. Ayanda is also a proud product of the Adopt-A-School Project.
Project HOPE is a youth development programme established at
the Hope Youth Sports Academy of the Drakenstein Correctional Services facility.
SA Tug-of-War has instituted tug-of-war as one of the six sporting codes that is
currently being coached at this Academy. The ultimate aim of this project is to
teach the inmates the sport itself as well as to present coaching clinics and
referee courses in order for these youngsters to establish clubs in their
different communities once they are released from prison.
The GATEWAY Project is SA Tug-of-War’s project aimed at
providing opportunities for the disabled to participate in the sport. As the
sport lends itself extremely well to participants with hearing and visual
disabilities to participate on equal foot with able-bodied athletes, this avenue
will be actively pursued as one of our focus areas.
Project AFRICAN WARRIOR is a project focused on the development
and high performance of our senior men’s team. The senior men’s team is
currently ranked eighth in the world and is on a high performance programme to
win at least one medal at the 2010 World Championships in Tshwane, South Africa.
SATF’s vision goes beyond the strategic issues outlined in this plan. Part of
our vision include the re-institution of Tug-of-War at the SA Games as a
sporting code by no later than 2011 as well as the hosting of an All Afican
Tug-of-War Championships in August 2011. More than half of the countries in the
Commonwealth participate in the sport. In this regard SATF will be approaching
the Commonwealth Sports Commission on behalf of the African countries and
officially request that the sport be included in the Commonwealth Games from
2013. The princess royal, Princess Anne of Britain, is championing the case for
Tug-of-War to be re-included in the Olympic Games. If this is not realised at
the Olympic Games of 2012, it will hopefully be included from 2016. SATF
actively supports this endeavour.
The national executive of SATF does their work without any remuneration and with
only one commonality amongst them all: A passion for the sport! It is therefore
my request that this Strategic plan will be actively pursued by all role-players
that have a vested interest in the sport.
Tug-of-War Greetings!
Johann Möller
President, South African Tug of War Federation
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