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South Africa’s Olympic team gets a warm welcome at Heathrow airport on Friday, eager to meet their target of bringing home at least 12 medals this year.
WELCOME TEAM SA! Team South Africa has arrived in London ready to bring home the gold
by HEATHER WALKER
N
ow that South Africa’s Olympic athletes and officials have arrived in London, the excitement is growing for what is hoped will be SA’s most successful Olympics yet. The team arrived at Heathrow Airport on Friday morning after departing from Johannesburg on a specially decorated SAA plane. They received a warm welcome to London from their friends, supporters and SAA staff, who were there to greet them on arrival.
And it looks like they have even brought us some South African sunshine! While Team SA have settled into their new accommodation in the Olympic Village, five top South African officials will be staying in a 5 star hotel near Embankment, while a further 15 officials are in 4 star rooms at a hotel in Charing Cross. Meanwhile, most of the athletics team are hard at work at their training camp at St Mary’s College in Twickenham. Champion hurdler and medal
hopeful LJ Van Zyl tweeted, “Very good set-up here at St Marys. Saw Caster [Semenya] and [her coach] Maria [Mutola] here.” Semenya has been chosen to lead Team SA in the opening ceremony pageant on Friday 27 July as South Africa’s official flagbearer for London 2012. “It’s such a privilege for me to do such a big thing like that. To carry the flag for the team, it’s such a big thing,” said Semenya, who is only the second female flagbearer for both the Olympics and the
Paralympics after Natalie du Toit, who was awarded the honour in Beijing 2008. Race walker Marc Mundell tweeted, “Super exciting times. Proudly South African. What a fantastic send off at ORTIA. Ke Nako.” The team has been set the goal of 12 medals, in compensation for the poor show in Beijing. Speaking at a Presidential send-off in Pretoria, Jacob Zuma said the government supported the medal target and offered the country’s support. He
declared, “Team South Africa, now is your turn to take this nation to even greater heights. “Going to London you must do better than in Beijing. We will be behind you as a nation, waving our beautiful rainbow flag at every available moment.” Our women’s football team, Banyana Banyana, kick off the first event on Wednesday, two days ahead of the opening ceremony. See p3 for events at Ekhaya, p18 for a list of South African Olympic events to watch this week.