The big guns were not there. In neither the men’s nor the women’s race. That left the door open for Jeremy Andreas and Lebo Phalula to claim the title of SA 10km Champion in Ethekwini.

While it is always good to see new blood coming through, and Andreas is certainly one to keep an eye on, as is runner up Namakoe Mkhise who was also the first junior across the line, the big story though is that the championships actually took place.

With the National Federation in turmoil, the 2013 SA National 10km Championships almost did not take place at all. Enter KZN. The province hosted and funded the National Championships with virtually no assistance from the National Federation, other than logistical support in the last few weeks leading up to the Championship and on the day. And therein lies the story.

There is a Facebook page going by the name of KZN and it seems we have turned the corner. It is no secret that 18 months ago the province was in turmoil and was facing financial ruin with a R600 000 deficit. So bad was the situation that the Hawks were called in and investigations are underway.

Eighteen months later the province hosted the national 10km championships and is showing a R400 000 surplus.

“We simply had to stop the money going out, once we did that, we very quickly turned around the deficit”, Sello Mokoena told me. But it was not as simple as that. It took a concerted effort by many people in the province who have an interest in the sport to make that change. The first thing needed was to get rid of the previous board and after that was achieved the finances could be sorted.

It is not about the numbers only though. Whilst having a positive bank account is always a good thing, the objective of the province is to grow the sport. “We need to have people wanting to do athletics again. And there certainly seems to be a desire to do so,” said Ritesh Ramraj – the ASA LOC Chairperson for the National 10km Championships. “We recently held a School Challenge and had over 4000 participants. This has never happened before.

“We put on the South African Cross Country Championships in September last year. It was a huge success. A couple of weeks ago we hosted the Student National Track and Field Championships. There is a new desire to have the sport happen in KZN.”

That atmosphere and desire was certainly very much in evidence during the national 10km championships. Ramraj and his committee held a mass race prior to the SA 10km Championships. These people stayed on to watch the elite race held over a two-lap spectator friendly course. And whilst the route wasn’t lined with spectators all the way, there were spots on the road which were three deep with spectators.

“It was amazing to see these guys fly around the course.”

“Loved being so close to the action. Should happen all the time.”

Those were some of the comments heard by the roadside from spectators.

Nine time SA 10 000m Champion, Xolile Yawa was in attendance, as was 1992 New York Marathon Champion, Willie Mtolo. Both were massively impressed. “This is what we remember when we raced back in our day. It is really good to see this again. And when people watch you race, it is good for the athlete because it gives us that extra impetus,” said Yawa.

“But it is even more important because it means people are taking an interest in the sport again. And we need that.”

Whilst it is a small step that KZN have taken, it is a vital one and in the right direction. Because if the provinces are in a good state, then the National Federation too will be healthy. As Sello Mokoena said “We need to sort out our troubles first, then the top will naturally be healthy.”

Has the tide turned? Only time will tell. But if KZN can, within 18 months do a complete turn around, why cant the rest of the country not follow suit?

It’s commonly accepted that the mere running of a marathon is a battle for survival as the body fights off growing fatigue and aching legs.

What is completely unacceptable is when the running of a marathon becomes a true battle for survival with the threat of actual limbs being lost in acts of terror as happened in the 2013 Boston Marathon.

One of the ‘classic’ events of the athletics world, the Boston Marathon is held on Patriots Day, a holiday in the state of Massachusetts. The city turns out in its thousands to celebrate the race to the finish line a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit.

On Monday patriotism sprung to the fore with participating doctors in the field running directly to the aid of the wounded without fear or regard for their own safety, Runners ran directly to hospitals to donate blood to the injured.

Like so many marathons these days, the Boston Marathon features many charity efforts. Particularly touching were nine residents of Newtown, who lined up to commemorate the 26 people killed at the Sandy Hook school shootings late last year.

They called themselves Team Newton Strong – running the first 20 miles of the race for the 20 first graders who died and the final six for the six teachers who died.

Their support banners hung at the finish as the two explosions ripped through spectators, killing at least three people. What more must these residents go through

Sport (all codes) and acts of terror – because no matter which individual or which movement claims responsibility its an act of terror – will always be inextricably linked.

The Olympics feature prominently after the 1972 Munich Games were rocked by politically driven terror, the Atlanta Games were marred by an explosion at Olympic Park.

Cricketers have also been affected, with a suicide bombing outside the New Zealand team hotel in 2002, the Mumbai blasts in 2008 and the attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in 2009.

Closer to home was the armed attack on the Togolese soccer team in Angola ahead of the 2012 World Cup.

The 2008 Dakar Rally was called off due to the possibility of an Al Qaeda attack.

Marathon events have also not been left untouched by the tendrils of terror and in Sri Lanka four years ago 15 athletes were killed by a suicide bomber at the start of the Sinhala and Tamil New Year Marathon. Among the dead were a former Olympic marathon runner KA Karunaratne and the Sri Lankan athletics coach, Lakshman de Alwis.

Sadly the world of terror has no respect for sport, so often used as a tool to bring people together and work as a force of good.

The two South Africans racing this year’s Boston – Rene Kalmer and Ernst van Dyk – came through unscathed although both were in the vicinity of the explosions.

Kalmer injured her calf muscle and battled through the final stages, while Van Dyk had to settle for silver.

In the immediate aftermath of their race, both were probably thinking “if only” on what could have been better scenarios in their individual races.,

The explosions changed that way of thinking – they’re alive and live to fight and race another day. Others won’t get that chance.

Kalmer summed it up like this: “Bedtime after a blue marathon Monday. Race didn’t go according to plan, but it is irrelevant after the tragedy. Prayers for Boston!”

She may as well have said: Prayers for the sad state of affairs the world finds itself in right now…

The world will go on… the world’s next big city marathon is only a few days away and Van Dyk is already about to head off to compete in that event. But in a real world he shouldn’t have to worry about the fear of what may happen along the way.

In an age of money and fame, with global sport confronting a multitude of controversies in an effort to save face before a cynical public, it is more crucial now than ever that the media follows the rules.

After the advent of social media, which gives every person a public voice, and with multi-million dollar sponsorship deals and billion dollar broadcast agreements dominating decisions in the global sporting atmosphere, it is crucial that balance and order are maintained across the various sports pages, and radio and TV waves.

Controversy has gripped sport in so many ways, snatching the ideals of an adoring public as the focus shifts further from sportsmanship to sponsorship, creating a pandemic that exists across the world.

With doping organisations forced to crack down, we’ve seen the career of the world’s most prolific cyclist crashing at his feet, and with media scrutiny at an all-time high, the best golfer on the planet is still recovering from a mighty fall after a probe into his personal life.

Fifa is undergoing a worldwide investigation in an ambitious attempt to remove the stigma of match fixing that envelops the most popular of sports, and their quest has reached the bottom tip of Africa, with Safa launching an investigation of its own.

So big has the sporting world become that an athlete with no legs, adored by many and admired by most, has dominated headlines across the globe in recent weeks, at the centre of a tragedy that has gripped the nation.

For an indication of how hard an athlete can fall, you need not peer across the ocean, for a peep at Marion Jones, Armstrong or Woods, you can simply glance at a nearby city, where the Blade Runner hides under a hoodie in his uncle’s home.

The day the story broke, while the media clamoured for details and the nation ground to a halt in disbelief, long before Oscar Pistorius even stood before a magistrate, the public had sealed his fate.

Social networks were flooded with opinion, as people went one way or the other, ignorant of the facts and regardless of the truth, stamping their support as their hero was grilled by police, or turning their backs on a man who opened fire on a toilet door on the most tragic of Valentines Days.

Social networking gave us an indication of how rumours and half truths can lead to misinformed opinions, with a man being judged before he has a chance to defend himself. Judgements that, regardless of the outcome of the trial, he is unlikely to overcome.

Bloggers and social networkers have as much a responsibility to gather and release correct information as the media does, but of course, an attempt to rein in the public would be largely futile.

While I am bound by my ethics, with editors keeping a watchful eye to ensure I stay in line, the public has no such watch dog.

It is vital, therefore that established media outlets, across all platforms, don’t get caught up in the immediacy of a breaking story, and the flood of untested information, by skipping standard procedures in compiling editorial content.

If we do that, we lose our role, our place in society, and we’re of no more use to the public than the millions of citizens typing furiously on their cell phones.

While the world points fingers and formulates opinions based on 144 character flashes of information, while millions with access to the internet post their thoughts on web-based platforms, the need for a balanced, ethical media is not only evident, it’s more crucial than ever.

Their lives and sporting careers shared so much in common yet neither ever got to reach the truth potential of life’s cycle.

Two years to the month that one of our most promising cyclists, Carla Swart lost her life on a lonely Free State road, our Olympian mountain biker Burry Stander died on another of South Africa’s deadly dangerous roads – on this occasion the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast.

Swart, a multiple biking champion and who had been very much part of South Africa’s 2012 Olympic plans after an eighth place finish in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, was 23.

Stander, already a 2008 Olympian having finished 15th in the mountain-bike event in Beijing, went on to finish fifth in London. He was only 25 at the time of his passing.

By all accounts his time would really have come in Rio de Janeiro, at the 2016 Olympics.

Would either Swart or Stander have won a medal had they been allowed to bloom to their full potential? We’ll never know now…

Unlike like the scourge of rhino poaching that has recently fallen over South Africa, the issue of our sportsmen and women dying while out training on our roads is nothing new.

Sadly it’s usually only when a leading light is snuffed out in this tragic fashion that the issue raises its deadly head once again.

Married to fellow 2008 Olympian Cherise Taylor as recently as May of last year, Stander’s passing comes at the tail-end of yet another free-for-all festive season of carnage on our roads and SASCOC President Gideon Sam has long called for something to be done about the situation.

In October, 2011 he mourned the loss of five road runners in Midrand, hit by a car while out training.

This is what he had to say on that occasion: “South African sport as a whole is rocked by these tragic deaths. We in the sports movement are always supporting the notion of ‘wellness’ and participation in sport and its such a natural thing to get outdoors and run as well as cycle in the interests of staying fit and healthy. But when our runners and cyclists end up losing their lives in this manner something must be done as this is going to discourage people of all ages from taking up sport.

“Maybe our authorities must look at even more special jogging, cycling lanes to safeguard our sportsmen and women’s lives while out there training and enjoying themselves. This carnage on our roads simply has to stop.”

Clearly it hasn’t though… a sad state of affairs.

The usual finger-pointing will be in full flow following this latest tragedy – “drivers are speed-crazy idiots with no respect for cyclists and runners; cyclists and runners ride/run two or more abreast and don’t stop at traffic lights.”

They all have valid points to some degree. But the bottom line is, yet another sporting star has fallen. How many more will it take for common sense and reason to prevail? Countless other road victims won’t get as much headline space as Burry Stander but his passing may just be another beat of the drum urging each and every South African to look in the mirror and remind themselves to wake up, act responsibly and stay alive.

R.I.P Burry Stander – another fallen talent

In the wake of a mediocre season from the majority of South Africa’s elite athletes, reflected by a lone silver medal at the London Games, a look at some of the country’s rising stars paints a prettier picture for the coming season.

The likes of sprint sensation Anaso Jobodwana, high hurdler Lehann Fourie, accomplished middle distance star Caster Semenya and one-lap hurdler Cornel Fredericks will get a chance next year to further establish their status among the best track and field athletes in the world.

Jobodwana, 20, was perhaps the find of the year, clocking a personal best of 20.27 seconds to storm into the Olympic final.

Based in the United States, Jobodwana’s best time ranked him 20th in the world this season and he will hope to narrow the gap on the Jamaican and American superstars in 2013.

Another surprise star at the Games, Fourie finished seventh in the final, and went on to set a new South African record of 13.24 in Brussels in September. He’s already 25, but has a lot left in his legs, and remains relatively young for a sprint hurdler.

Fredericks, 22, had a relatively disappointing season, left dealing with a personal tragedy after his coach, Bruce Longden, died on the eve of the Games, and then pulling his hamstring in the first round in London.

He set a career record of 48.14 in 2011 and finished fifth at the World Championships in Daegu that year, and while he only just dipped under 49 seconds in 2012, he should bounce back next season.

Semenya is already a three-time medal winner at major international championships, and it’s easy to forget that she’s still only 21 years old. The saving grace in London, Semenya set a season’s best to grab silver in the Olympic 800m final in 1:57.23.

A consistent performer at major events, she will be gunning for her third straight medal at the World Championships in Moscow next year.
Meanwhile, a number of other youngsters will be eager to take another step closer to the global elite.

Two-lap specialist Andre Olivier, 22, had a breakthrough season at senior level, proving he has the ability to continue South Africa’s rich history in the men’s 800m event.

Olivier clocked a personal best of 1:44.29 in Monaco in July and showed his worth on the big stage by snatching bronze at the African Championships in Porto Novo and reaching the semi-finals in London.

With Khotso Mokoena struggling to find his best form the last couple of seasons, 23-year-old Zarck Visser will be eager to take over the mantle as the country’s best long jumper.

Visser leaped 8.15m in Pretoria in May, and if former world junior champion Luvo Manyonga, still only 21, can overcome personal issues on his return from a drug ban, both jumpers could shine on the international circuit in the next few years.

And while they might not seem young, having both been impressive on the domestic track and road circuits in recent seasons, marathon prospects Stephen Mokoka, 27, and Irvette van Zyl, 25, could challenge for titles at major international races if they focus on the classic distance.

Mokoka was in fine form this season, setting a personal best over 10 000m on the track (27:40.73) and in the half-marathon on the road (1:00.57) but his potential truly lies over 42 kilometres.

Having twice finished eighth at the World Half-marathon Championships, and after a stunning 2:08:33 debut marathon in Seoul two years ago, Mokoka showed guts by taking the race to the East Africans in London, despite eventually trailing home in 49th place.

Van Zyl also produced a marvellous debut effort, finishing the London Marathon in 2:33:41 in April, and though she crashed out of her first attempt over 42km in Soweto last year and the Olympic Marathon in the English capital, she is a real talent.

Neither have the speed to challenge globally on the track, or even over shorter distances on the road, but both Mokoka and Van Zyl have enough strength and experience to make the permanent step up in distance.

One medal from the country’s athletics team in London, and four years ago in Beijing, is simply not good enough.

If they put the effort in, and get the support they need, South Africa has a host of bright stars that can shine in Rio in 2016.

When it was rumoured a few years ago that Lance Armstrong was interested in riding in the Absa Cape Epic, I wrote a story about it. Kevin Vermaak, the founder of the Epic called me the next day to say that one of my Cape Town sister papers had used the story big.

“There was even a lamp-pole poster,” he smiled. “That’s the first lamp-pole poster the Epic has ever had.”

When I heard, late one evening, that Armstrong would be coming to ride in the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour, I wrote a story about it. The Cape Argus used it as their front-page lead, as I recall. They ran a lamp-pole poster about it.

When, on the night before the last stage of the Absa Cape Epic earlier this year, I saw on Twitter that Armstrong said he wanted to ride in the Cape Epic, I didn’t write a story about it. I was too tired and nervous that night. The final stage of the Epic awaited.

But I tweeted about it and SMS’d Vermaak. He was over the moon. He was already talking to people about the logistics they’d need. I BBM’d Rob Hunter about it and Hunter said that he and Armstrong might even ride the Epic as a team.

It would have given the Epic, already the most-televised mountain bike race in the world, another level of publicity.

Now Armstrong will never ride the Epic. He will never ride in the Argus again. It is unlikely he will come back to South Africa again. He is gone, but not forgotten.

What cannot be forgotten is how he managed to fool so many of us for so long. We suspected, but we dared not challenge him. There was much fear at the reaction, the wrath that might be visited upon us had we continued to ask the same questions about the drugs.

Armstrong gave the same answers to those same questions. He was convincing. He’d never failed a drug test. Even the great Eddy Merckx believed him. He said this week he had been taken in by the story.

If it had not been for the bravery of David Walsh and Paul Kimmage, the two Irish journalists who were at the forefront of keeping the suspicions against Armstrong alive in the press, then perhaps he may have continued to get away with it all. They had thick skins, although Kimmage admitted to feeling afraid at times when he stood up to Armstrong. That makes his actions all the more laudable. I wish I had been as brave as they.

I’ve cheated before. It’s a slippery path is the short cut to an end point. But with it has always come horrid guilt, a feeling of not having earned the right to call something a true accomplishment. It nags at me. My skin is not thick enough to keep it buried forever and I confess. My cheating has been small time, nothing drastic. An answer sneaked during an exam, a faked injury to win some time during a football match.

Armstrong’s cheating was organised and orchestrated. It was pre-meditated, borne from a hunger and anger at seeing others get away with doping and deciding that he would be better than them. And through it all, he has continued to keep the lie alive.

It’s an extraordinary mindset to be able to do that, a skin so thick that most overwhelming evidence cannot pierce it. Perhaps it is because Armstrong has begun to believe the lie. Perhaps he does not think that the doping was a bad thing. Perhaps he thinks the end justified the means.

His former teammates did. They cracked. The weight of the lies too heavy to bear for much longer. Yes, they accepted lesser sentences for their testimonies, and that played a part, but they will forever be known as cheats, too, and that is a tag no one would wish upon themselves.

It is rumoured that Armstrong may one day confess. I will write about that story. It will be a lamp-pole poster story.

Isn’t it good to see our athletes getting some recognition in the wake of the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics?

Last week’s Tukkies sports awards were dominated by Olympic achievers. Our gold-medal winning “Awesome Foursome” rowers – James Thompson, Matthew Brittain, John Smith and Sizwe Ndlovu – were named TuksSports’ 2012 Sportsmen of the year.

And at the same awards, bronze medal canoeist Bridgitte Hartley was named Sportswoman of the year. She admitted this week that her life has changed drastically for the better since her Olympic medal (as it should!) and she’s been been doing a good deal of public speaking and negotiating with sponsors and charities.

She’s also been presented with a sponsored new Toyota motor vehicle which will no doubt help her bid to drive the Olympic message home.

The Tuks awards were liberally sprinkled with Olympians. National rowing coach Roger Barrow was named coach of the year, Student sportswoman of the year went to rower Lee-Ann Perse and athlete Willie de Beer (part of the 4x400m Olympic relay team) got the Student Sportsman of the year.

And newsmaker of the year went to silver medal winning 800m athlete Caster Semenya.

Sports Personality of the Year was Olympian/Paralympian Oscar Pistorius who won two gold medals at the Paralympics.

Staying on the Paralympic scene and two more of our medal-winning athletes have been rewarded by their respective tertiary institutions and it couldn’t have been two nicer guys on the receiving end.

Also last week it was Samkelo Radebe and Kevin Paul who got some welcome recognition.

Radebe was part of the victorious 4×100-metre track relay team in London, leading off Zivan Smith, Arnu Fourie and Oscar Pistorius to glorious gold in the final athletics event of the Paralympics.

In his penultimate year as a law student, Radebe was named 2012 University of Johannesburg Sportsman of the year.

Then down in Port Elizabeth it was Paul who found himself in the spotlight last week. Like Radebe, a law student, he was named Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Sportsman of the Year for the third time. This after he won silver in the 100m breaststroke final in London last month.

So all good and deserved publicity for our Olympians and Paralympians.

Now the trick is to keep that awareness going.

Awareness that there are sporting achievements in codes other than cricket, rugby and soccer.

In a year’s time, the South African sports public should still know who the likes of Samkelo, Kevin and Bridgitte are in the national sporting framework and not allow them to simply disappear into the distance as the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics become mere memories…

Where else in the world would you possibly see an Class 31 being pushed by an F40 who is in turn leading a T12 as the merry trio go in search of lunch?

Let me explain? The world of the Paralympics is an amazing, eye-opening and yes, jaw-dropping place.

The above occurrence took place in the gargantuan gastronomic experience that is the Paralympic Village dining hall, a sprawling, tented area that was able to feed up to 5,500 people when at full steam.

The opening poser saw an amputee in a wheelchair, with no legs and only one arm, being pushed by an athlete with  dwarfism, who in turn had the hand of a severely visually impaired athlete on his shoulder and in tow.

What made this common display of aid even the more touching was that all three athletes were from different countries! Put that scenario out in the so-called “real world” and many would say the circus had come to town.

Not in the Paralympic Village though, where everyone IS real and all of these athletes had smiles on their face.

Yes folks, this is the amazing world of Paralympic sport where there’s no time for sympathy or feeling sorry for yourself. Empathy perhaps but each and every one of the competitors had some sort of disability whether it was minor or major. They were never alone.

The stories of grit over adversity have been well documented and will continue to be but sadly, in the next few days, weeks and months, the awareness that Paralympians are very real people and athletes, yes athletes, will fade until the next Paralympics in Rio four years from now.

Talk is that the London Paralympics have done more to raise the awareness than ever before – here’s hoping so, it needs to happen.

One thing’s for sure, that having being privileged enough to be part of both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic experience, this writer will think twice before overly complaining about a running injury or head cold. They pale into insignificance quicker than dry ice evaporates on a hot day.

Here’s a thought, how about the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) inviting (forcing would be a better word) as many problem children and hot-air belching politicians as possible to spend a day in the Paralympic Village amongst these amazing overcomers of adversity. They may think twice before acting again.

Take nothing away from the Olympians, nothing at all, but when it comes to the Paralympics and what they stand for, smaller ego’s and bigger hearts are the order of the day not the exception.

While many felt that the Paralympics would struggle to captivate in the wake of such an absorbing Olympics, the past three weeks have served as evidence to the contrary. London, through its media and its public, has embraced the Paralympics wholeheartedly.

It’s a spirit and feeling of goodwill that’s been impossible to ignore. I arrived at Heathrow a day after the Olympics ended and was instantly mobbed by zealous volunteers in those symbolic pink and purple Paralympic bibs. I was then assaulted by advertisements on the tube telling me: ‘Don’t Fly, support ParalympicsGB!’ and ‘London Re-calling!’

And it’s not an exclusively British phenomenon, as it was the image of Oscar Pistorius that greeted me when I picked up a copy of the Metro on 13 August. It was a photograph of the Blade Runner, posted to an iconic red telephone booth, that stared at me when I arrived at my
final destination.

The Olympics is a celebration of humankind at its physical peak, but the sense that’s been created over these past three weeks is that the Paralympics is something more, something to which everybody of every shape and size can relate.

I have been accosted and asked for my opinion on the matter in the unlikeliest of places. While covering the third Test between England and South Africa at Lord’s last week, where the battle for the No 1 ranking was reaching a climax, people were asking me about Cameron van der Burgh and Chad le Clos, because I’m South African. The conversation moved quickly to ‘that bloke with the metal legs’.

It’s clear that the locals haven’t lost their appetite for all things Olympian, or Paralympian, when they can ask such questions during the final stages of a thrilling and massively important Test match. I had to cut short one gentleman in an egg and bacon tie, as our extensive Paralympic discussion had very nearly prevented us from watching the final session of the cricket.

It’s been almost a month since we witnessed the likes of Usain Bolt shattering perceptions of what the human body can do. Right now, we’re being treated to a different sort of heroism where physical ability isn’t the be-all and end-all.The Paralympics won’t see anybody running
as fast as Bolt or swimming as swiftly as Van der Burgh, but the prospect of a less ‘results-driven’ spectacle certainly hasn’t curbed the city’s enthusiasm.

On Wednesday night, a massive crowd was on hand to mark the opening of the Paralympics at the magnificent Olympic Stadium. It was an event that transcended the normal sporting experience. Renowned scientist and paraplegic Stephen Hawking proved an inspirational and relevant choice as MC, and the simple act of the athletes making their way around the track was something to behold. Whether they walked freely, rolled in wheelchairs, or hobbled on crutches, they symbolised that other, sometimes under-celebrated, side of the Olympics. As much as physical achievements matter, the triumphs of the spirit cannot be discounted.

In terms of electing one international athlete who embodies this idea, the English seem to have settled on Pistorius. You can’t walk down the street without being confronted with his likeness in some form or the other, and the latest carnation is a comic strip character called ‘Victorious’.

Editors of the long running Beano felt Pistorius a worthy inclusion and that while he’s not quite Dennis the Menace, there are admirable similarities. Pistorius has ‘refused to do as told’, he has refused to accept that the absence of legs should prevent him from running and realising his dreams. Beano claims that Dennis has inspired generations of readers, and that with his recent achievements, and possibly those to come in the current Paralympics, Pistorius will do the same.

The Olympics may be a thing of the past, but the flame is yet to flicker. London has set a high standard in their hosting of the Games, and look set to break further records with their staging of the Paralympics. Rio de Janeiro, and all Olympic hosts to follow, would do well to take note.

A tapper used to be one of those seldom seen South African Railways workers that used to wake up passengers in the middle of the night at some bygone junction between here and nowhere.

Their job was to tap the giant wheels of steel for any defects that may lead to possible derailment and delay.

More recently one can think of your every day taxpayer, being tapped dry in the banking department.

And on a more pleasant note, the local barman pouring a draught beer after a days’ work could be described as a tapper.

But here in London I’ve discovered a tapper of an altogether different type.

Cue our Paralympic swimmers hard in training for the Games which start next week and you’ll see Eeden Meyer and Karin Hugo with what could best be described as a cross between a modern day knobkierrie, cattle prod and fly fishing rod.

Yours truly stupidly thought the description of a tapper was someone who tapped on the side of the pool to alert our blind swimmers to the fact that the end wall was in sight.

But no, the tapper is just that, someone with a strange device that prods swimmers just before they  reach the turn and alerts them to the fact that they are, well, about to hit the wall.

Tappers are only used for two of our visually impaired swimmers, Renette Bloem and Hendrick Herbst.

Says Meyer: “Butterfly and breaststroke are the most difficult strokes to tap for because the arms are away from the body and the swimmers are also going up and down in the water so you have to make sure you hit the guys the first time.”

Indeed, you only have two cracks at your swimmer, a third attempt could be interpreted as possible pacemaking and result in disqualification.

“Our sticks are just over 2m and very similar to those used by Japan,” says Meyer. “The Russians and Germans use longer poles close to 5m to give the guys much more notice.”

Herbst, a relative newcomer, has only been using the tap system for the last year and a half or so while Meyer and Bloem have been working together for about five years now.

Says Hugo: “The pressure on tappers [one at each end of the pool length] is quite intense as you only really have two attempts.”

Herbst and Bloem are the only two of our swimmers who need tapping help and both have to wear totally blacked out goggles in line with their classification.

In that regard its rumoured that some black nail varnish was amongst Team South Africa’s  dutyfree purchases at OR Tambo in order to blacken goggles completely.

All rather eye-opening stuff in the amazing world of Paralympic sport…