The message from the SA Sports Commission is that Team SA are confident of defending their All Africa Games crown in October.

The Games get under way in just six weeks and the full team of 372 athletes was announced at a press conference on Wednesday 20th August 2003.

South Africa will be represented in 21 sports ranging from athletics and soccer to the lesser known codes such as handball and chess.

Deputy chef de mission to the Games, Gogo Manqoyi, recently returned from Nigeria and said the general buzz in Abuja was that Nigeria would take over South Africa's No 1 spot. Manqoyi, however, said: "We will definitely defend our title."

South Africa is to be represented by 202 white sportsmen and women, 102 blacks, 65 coloureds and 10 Asians in the Africa Games, to be held in Auja, Nigeria in October - and that's official.

This race classification in the official document used by the Sports Commission to announce the SA team this week could still make waves in sports circles.

Sports Commission boss Joe Phaahla acknowledged as much on Thursday. "We went too far," he said, before explaining that the intention had been to give an indication of the progress made with the (multi-racial) constitution of sports teams.

"Unfortunately, our dilemma is that we've got to refer to race when we do this," said Phaahla, who also indicated that there had been a concerted effort to afford athletes from previously-disadvantaged communities a good opportunity to make the team.

Approached for comment on the reference to race in the team announcement, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Commission said the Commission would only comment if an official complaint was received.

The South African team includes the following sporting codes:
Athletics, badminton, baseball, boxing, chess, cycling, soccer (men and women), gymnastics, handball, field hockey (men and women), judo, karate, softball, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, volley ball, (men and women), weight-lifting and wrestling (men and women).

The wrestling team consists of 12 white athletes, while the tennis team appears to be the most balanced, with two white players (Rik de Voest and Willem Meyer) and two black players (Punch Maleka and Raven Klaasen).

There is also reference to the sex of the individual athletes in the document, but there is no indication, for example, of the items for which the cyclists and the athletes have been selected.

Team SA All Africa Games Swimming Team
S Ackerman, R Altmann, J Bergman, M Corfe, J du Rand, N du Toit, L Ferns, G Galant, I Haiden, V Janse van Rensburg, Z Jardine, R Khalied, B Meyer, R Neethling, J Norton, T Parkin, A Pelser, T Prinsloo, M Randall, L Retief, L Roets, R Schoeman, L Sparg, C Stewart, S Thirsk, D Townsend, K van Heerden, C van Wyk, N Versfeld, T Verster, V von der Heyde, E Wedemeyer, N Wilson, G Zandberg, C Zwiegers