Premier of the Free State, Mr. E.S. Magashule
Executive Mayor of the Manguang Metro, Cllr. Thabo Manyoni
President of SASCOC, Mr. Gideon Sam
CEO of SASCOC, Mr. Tubby Reddy
Program Director
Colleagues
Honored guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends.
We are greatly honoured as the Free State Province to be the venue of this all important National Training Centre (NTC). As a povince we had already officially welcomed and acknowledged this idea of the NTC being established here in the Free State.
In his State of the Province Address, on 21 February 2013, the Premier of the Free State, Mr Ace Magashule, stated that we “will be establishing a national training centre and academy for high performance for the entire country in order to prepare national athletes for the international, continental and national events”. On 20 March 2013 I also issued a policy statement as part of my budget vote speech to the effect that we will indeed be hosting this Centre within our Province.
Programme Director, that political commitment that we made as a Province was based on a solid foundation. We appreciate the confidence that the whole country has in us to host an institution of such significance and magnitude. This confidence served as a motivation factor in us rising up to accept the challenge.
As a Province we have a solid foundation upon which we base our commitment to making the NTC a realizable and working dream for the country, to ensure that the country becomes ready every time when we have to participate in the continental and international sport competitions. First to start with, we are strategically located at the centre of the country geographically speaking. We are indeed at the centre of it all making us an ideal venue for this and other kinds of institution.
Among the other qualities that we possess as a Province, particularly in the sport arena is the fact that:
1 We are the only Province in the country with a government run Sport Science Institute which provides sport science services to elite athletes.
2 We follow a well-orchestrated sport programme with a strong developmental content as well as high performance training for elite athletes
3 Our sport continuum consists of a mass participation and talent identification foundation phase which proceeds to the level of high performance and, ultimately, the elite level.
4) For each of this levels or phases we have set up and are implementing programmes and institutions to identify port talent, nurture it and unleash it for active participation at national, continental and international sporting events
Programme Director, the sport infrastructure development that we have embarked upon in this Province speaks directly to this strong foundation that we have for the establishment of the NTC here in the Free State.
We have established 15 Multipurpose Sport Courts in various municipalities or towns of this Province to allow for communities to engage in sporting activities where sport talent can be identified. In line with the sport continuum that I have referred to, we have also established three (3) District High Performance Centres and Local Talent Development Centres in the three (3) districts of our Province, with two (2) more still to be established in the other district and the metro.
I must stress that we are the only Province in the country with these facilities. At the apex of our sport development continuum, the elite level, we have the Free State port Science Institute which caters for elite athletes and sport bodies taking part at national, continental as well as international sport competitions.
In recent times we have embarked on a programme of establishing code specific centres to zone into the kinds of sporting codes that tends to be on the margins. These include a Boxing High Performance center that is intended to enhance the development of elite boxers as well as the Centers for Badminton, Netball and Karate.
Programme Director, honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen, while these kinds of an efforts at sport infrastructure development and programme offerings are being made, ultimately what we need to see are concrete results in terms of the performance of our athletes in the playing field. It has been a concern of mine that our results in the playing field do not match the investment that we are making into our sport infrastructure and programmes.
Nonetheless, the latest performance by our provincial athletes at different sport competitions has given me much hope that our investment is finally bearing sweet fruits. For example, we had 16 Elite Karate athletes who took part in the Africa Zone championships that was held in Namibia from 28 to 29 June 2013.
These athletes did us proud as they secured five (5) Gold, four (4) Silver and three (3) Bronze individual medals, topped off by 6 Gold Team medals during this tournament.
The entire South African (SA) Senior Male team won a gold medal in the tournament. Out of the seven (7) players in this SA team five (5) were Free State athletes In the boxing arena one of our boxers, an 18-year-old boxer, Lerato Dlamini, won a gold medal during the bi-annual Zone VI games in Lusaka in December 2012. Dlamini became the newly crowned zone VI champion in the lightweight division during these games, palcing the Free State on the map.
This sterling performance follows his intensive training at one of the Department’s Local Talent Development Centres and District High Performance Centre in Thabong/Welkom.
These and other cases are indicative of the positive trajectory that we are on as a Province in as far as sport is concerned. As we launch this NTC today, it should be apparent that the Free State is the ideal place for this kind of a prestigious institution.
Today we have reached yet another important milestone in the vision of the Department by being able to partner with SASCOC and the Mangaung Metro to create a facility of international standard within the boundaries of our beautiful province. We will provide, as with so many of our projects, the template for others to follow and strive towards.
We as a province pride ourselves in the fact that with so many of our projects and initiatives we are not only leading the way, but also creating benchmarks that the rest of the country follows.
It is with pride that we welcome SASCOC to our province and with delight that we can launch this project today, encouraged by the faith that you have placed in us as a Province to again show the way in the sporting arena. May I extend our appreciation to our Premier and the Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metro for the support they have given to this project and to SASCOC for their confidence in us.
I thank you.
