Athletics SA cannot bank on sponsor staying on board
January 26, 2005 Edition 1
Johannesburg: South Africa's top athletes are gearing up for the IAAF world athletics championships in Helsinki in August as an air of uncertainty prevails over the future commitments of Absa, the main sponsors of Athletics South Africa.
Absa Group Executive, Brendan O'Donnell, was non-committal about any deals beyond this year with Athletics South Africa.
"We have no future commitments at this stage," said O'Donnell during the launch of the Absa Series Golden Challenge.
"Our contract with ASA ends at the end of June and we have a team that will review our strategy in the next two months. We share South Africa's passion for athletics, as we do in our commitments to soccer, rugby and the arts."
Should Absa not renew their contract, it will follow the loss of ASA's other track and field sponsor, Engen, in 2004.
"Absa has been a proud sponsor of the Absa Series and Absa Senior Track and Field Championships since 1998," said O'Donnell.
"We are looking forward to this season, especially with the series running in conjunction with the Absa Series Golden Challenge incentives."
The Chief Executive Officer of ASA, Banele Sindani, quipped: "We still have strong men at ASA who can twist arms at Absa."
Then, on a more serious note, he said: "We'll be making an announcement shortly. We've had to do some re-engineering and reinvent ourselves. We'll talk about this at another press conference in the near future."
South Africa's top athletes need to compete in at least three of the Absa meetings as part of their qualification for the world championships.
Mbuluani Mulaudzi, the Olympic silver-medallist, and world high-jump champion Jacques Freitag are among those who will return from the European indoor circuit to compete in the final three Absa Series meetings.
Freitag opens his indoor campaign in Poland tomorrow night. Mulaudzi will race in the 800m in Stuttgart on Saturday.
Llewellyn Herbert will race the 400m hurdles in Potchefstroom on February 4 before racing the 400 hurdles in Finland on February 6, followed by his attempt at the world 300m record on February 12.
