Athletics South Africa decides to prioritise lives over the sport under Covid-19

Athletics South Africa (ASA) said it had written to the Minister of Sport, Nathi Mthethwa, informing him that the athletics body had opted to prioritise lives during the current period of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This follows what ASA described as ‘a careful consideration by the ASA board’ who noted that the Covid-19 virus infection rate was rapidly rising in South Africa, making the risk to the lives of athletes and other role-players even more serious and dire.

On 30 May, Mthethwa announced the staggered opening of professional non-contact sport and opening of facilities to professional athletes for training. This is in reference to the risk adjustment strategy of Level 3 under the National Disaster Act.

“As a result, ASA has resolved not to host any national activities or participate at international events until ASA deems it is safe to do so or until it is expertly advised by the Department of Sport and World Athletics, that it is medically safe to host events at national and international [level].”

And once expertly advised by the Department of Sport, ASA will then take the responsibility to assess and decide on the appropriate way forward,” said the president of ASA, Aleck Skhosana in a virtual press conference with the media.

ASA said it had viewed the protocol models of World Athletics, other bodies and other countries, and reached a decision that none of them addressed the current dire scenario faced by South Africa and athletics.

“Even though athletics has been classified as a non-contact sport, it has unavoidable dynamics that may not be controlled during the action of competition and therefore making transmission a dangerous reality,” Skhosana said. “ASA has therefore chosen to be extra-ordinary cautious because one infection or one death, would be one too many for our sport, especially when we knew that this is an avoidable situation.”

Skhosana added that ASA programmes and activities continued to be either postponed or cancelled and would resume when it was time to do so and when the athletics body deemed it safe to return to the track fields.

“The ASA board has decided that, instead, all effort will be concentrated in ensuring that not a single life of an athlete, coach, support teams, event staff, volunteers and all involved, is lost because of Covid-19.

“We are not convinced as ASA that we should put athletes and coaches in a position that is not safe, and we do not want to see anyone from the athletics family form part of the statistics. We value every life. And that, to ASA, comes first.”

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