Cardiff to Host South African Team Pre London 2012
19.10.2011
Australia and New Zealand will also be based in Wales
South Africa has followed in the footsteps of Australia and New Zealand by announcing that it will be based in Wales for pre-Games training ahead of the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
The decision to opt for Cardiff as the South African base came after exhaustive research, negotiation and hard work behind the scenes and included visits to a number of other cities including London and Leeds.
The Australians will also be based in Cardiff and Newport and New Zealand in Swansea in the lead up to London 2012.
South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee’s (SASCOC) Vinesh Maharaj, who will be project manager for the South African Paralympic team in 2012 said a large number of factors had to be taken into consideration.
“Cardiff emerged as the choice because of the sheer number of facilities available to the team during the holding camp and also their outreach programmes in involving and developing athletes with disabilities for sporting excellence.
“Unlike the case with the Far Eastern countries there’s not a vast amount of travel to Wales and there won’t be the question of much acclimatisation needed so it’s envisaged that the camp will be for just four or five days, just before the team moves into the Olympic Village for the Games.”
SASCOC President Gideon Sam said: “This was a very exciting adventure for us to identify the training facilities and we hope that our federations are as excited as us about the choice.
“This training camp will allow us to bring our managers and support structure along and this will also assist and facilitate the gelling together of the team. They need to get to know each other well before the Games. The last thing we want is for them to get to London and then meet each other for the first time. This way we will be able to build the trust, and naturally the spirit, of the team as early as possible.
“And lastly, while we are in Wales, and making use of their excellent facilities, we are looking forward to tapping into their own sporting expertise, their universities etc and hopefully form working relationships for the future.”
The Welsh Minister for Heritage Alun Ffred Jones said: “Following on from earlier announcements by the Australian and New Zealand Paralympic teams, this announcement by the South Africans is further good news, and a reflection of the excellent facilities we have here in Wales and hard work that has been put in by the Welsh Assembly Government and its partners, in this case, Disability Sport Wales and Cardiff Council.
“To put this announcement into perspective, to-date 16 nations have signed agreements with different parts of the UK to stage pre-game training camps for 2012 and many of those agreements are either for very small Olympic and Paralympic teams or agreements made by individual sports - not multi-sport camps that involve large numbers of athletes and support staff.
“Wales now has almost one-fifth of agreements, and all ours are large multi-sport camps. This means around 500 team members will be based here in Wales prior to the Paralympics.”
The London 2012 Paralympic Games will feature 4,200 from 160 countries.