PHEW! What a year we’ve had on the sporting front!
Mamelodi Sundowns achieving a feat of lifting the 2015/16 Premier Soccer League title and going on all the way to end South Africa’s 21-year African Champions League drought by showing Zamalek the stars.
It doesn’t end there, the Brazilians became the only South African club to qualify for the Fifa Club World Cup to be held in Japan from 8 to 18 December.
We wish them the best of luck and hopefully they won’t be threatened by fact that La Liga giants Real
Madrid, are in the mix.
Go out there and bring it home Masandawana!
The Brazilians also scooped the SA Sports Awards Team of the Year accolade – an honour they couldn’t have won had they not knuckled down to action and blown away the pressure of having played for almost 17 months – non-stop.
When we thought we’ve seen it all, the Rio de Janeiro Olympics was like SA’s Disneyland for Wayde van Niekerk who, along with his coach Anna “Tannie Ans” Botha, made President Jacob Zuma’s country proud.
Not only did the track sprinter collect gold medals for Mzansi from Brazil, but he broke Michael Johnson’s
17-year standing 400m world record. Van Niekerk also made a clean sweep of awards at last weekend’s SA Sports Awards in Bloemfontein.
And again, Caster Semenya, despite haters saying: “she talks like a man, walks like a man, runs like a man.”
Her response proved that one needs a thick skin to be in this line of business. She brought gold medals home from Rio too and against all the odds, Semenya repeated the same feat at the Diamond League series meeting in Zurich in September, where she powered through to the finish and won the 800m race in 1 minute, 56.45 seconds.
She has been an unstoppable force all through, but all this happened in 2016.
But all these medals were won just after another gold from the Meeting Herculis in Monaco. If you want to know more about her, ask world 800m princesses like Katsiaryna Belanovich, Margaret Wambui and Francine Niyonsaba, the second fastest woman in the world.
How do I forget our paralympians 25-year-old Dyan Buis and Charl Du Toit from the Mother City?
This has truly been a year of memories and the Proteas team, with Kagiso Rabada at his best, there was no stopping Mzansi in 2016 along with Blitzbokke Seabelo Senatla.
Lately there was that stunning acrobatic bicycle kick goal by Baroka FC’s goalie Oscarline Masuluke in their league’s 1-1 draw with Orlando Pirates on Wednesday.
My wish for 2017 is that all these performances should inspire more athletes to follow in the footsteps of the great 2016 achievers!
Little said about Bafana Bafana and the Springboks the better, as Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba and Allister Coetzee were a
let-down.
This should be the year to forget for the Safa and SA Rugby, who had nothing but embarrassment. To both associations: You don’t need a new coach to be successful.
- All you need is to think quickly and do better than yesterday. What are your memorable moments of 2016?
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