CRICKET WORLD CUP 2003
41 sports ambassadors
Brad Morgan
Doctor Ali Bacher, executive director of the 2003 ICC Cricket World Cup, announced the names of 41 African Sport Ambassadors to help promote next year’s Cricket World Cup at a banquet at the Sandton Convention Centre on October 14.
International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Malcolm Speed presented the ambassadors, who will carry out duties at a variety of functions during the tournament, with special black and white braided blazers, reflecting the official mascot of the event, the zebra.
The zebra was chosen because its black and white stripes merge into one, symbolising the unity of the South African nation, and also because the gathering of zebras is known as a dazzle, which is exactly what organisers are planning to do to the world when the World Cup takes place.
"I don't believe I am exaggerating when I say that ... this represents the biggest gathering of sporting superstars that this country has ever witnessed at any one time," said Bacher after revealing
the identities of the ambassadors, and he just might have been right.
All the ambassadors will be paraded at the two-hour opening ceremony of the World Cup at Newlands, Cape Town on 8 February, where President Thabo Mbeki will officially open the 54-match tournament.
The sports ambassadors are made up of 31 South Africans, three Zimbabweans, four Kenyans, a Namibian, an Englishman, and an American, and represent 11 different sporting codes. The ambassadors are, by sport:
ATHLETICS
Hestrie Cloete (South Africa)
The queen of South African athletics, Hestrie Cloete has achieved considerable success in her career and demonstrated admirable BMT (big match temperament) along the way. Her career highlights include winning the high jump title at the World Championships in 2001, the 2002 Commonwealth Games title, and the silver medal at the 2000 Olympic Games. Her career best clearance of 2,04 metres at the IAAF Golden League
meeting in Monaco in 1999 saw her take victory by an astonishing eight centimetres and is a South African, African and Commonwealth record. Cloete has been crowned Athletics South Africa’s female athlete of the year every year from 1998 to 2001. The chances are good she will add 2002 to that.
Marius Corbett (South Africa)
Marius Corbett announced himself to the world in a spectacular manner in 1997 when he improved his best ever throw in the javelin by four-and-a-half metres to take a stunning gold medal at the World Championships in Athens. Corbett again showed his enjoyment of the big time when he captured the Commonwealth Games title in 1998, upsetting heavy favourite Steve Backley with a South African, African and Commonwealth record throw of 88.75 metres. Injuries subsequently derailed the big man’s career, but nowadays he remains in the public eye playing lock for the Leopards in South African provincial rugby.
Frank Fredericks
(Namibia)
Sprinting superstar Frank Fredericks boasts a wonderful record and a long-lasting career that is not yet over. The humble Namibian has already won four Olympic silver medals, two each in both the 100 and 200 metres, and a World Championship gold medal in the 200 metres. Only the legendary American Michael Johnson has ever run faster than Fredericks over the 200 metre distance, and had the Namibian ace been fit for the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and recorded the same time that he did in Atlanta, he would have won gold by an astounding 0.41 seconds, a runaway victory in such a short distance event. Fredericks’ longevity and continuing high level of performance make him one of the most respected athletes in the world today.
Kip Keino (Kenya)
Legendary Kenyan middle distance athlete Kip Keino was dominant in distances ranging from 1 500 metres to 5 000 metres. He came to the world’s attention in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics when he defeated the
USA’s Jim Ryun to win gold in the 1 500 metres; this after he had to run a mile to the stadium after being stuck in traffic on his way there! Then, despite a gall bladder infection, he claimed silver in the 5 000 metres. At the following Olympics in Munich he won gold in the 3 000 metres steeplechase and silver in the 1 500 metres. Today he is a member of the International Olympic Committee, an academy member of the prestigious World Sports Academy, responsible for the Laureus Awards, and he also runs the Kip Keino Children’s Home for abandoned children in Eldoret, Kenya.
Sydney Maree (South Africa)
Sydney Maree is known in South Africa as a television commentator on athletics, but he earned that position by his performances on the track. An athlete of obvious talent, he left South Africa in 1977 to further his athletics’ career and went on to become the premier American miler and 1 500-metre runner of his time. His record 3:29:77 in the 1 500m, run in 1985,
remains the US record to this day. Two years before that he set the world record in the same event with a time of 3:31:24. So successful was Maree in the USA that he at one time held the records for the 1 500 metres, the mile, the 3 000 metres and the 5 000 metres.
Hezekiel Sepeng (South Africa)
For years the South African 800 metres record stood at 1:44:70, held by Dickie Broberg and Marcello Fiasconaro, and it went unchallenged. That was until the appearance of a talented young athlete from Potchefstroom who re-wrote the South African record book in the event and led the emergence of a talented generation of South African middle distance runners. Hezekiel Sepeng really made his mark in 1996 when, as a 22-year old, he scorched to silver in the Olympic 800 metres in a stunning 1:42:74. He had previously taken silver at the Commonwealth Games in Victoria two years before, but with his run in Atlanta he proved himself one of the world’s best 800 metre athletes. He
added another Commonwealth silver medal to his collection in 1998 and a World Championship silver in 1999 too. Only ten men have ever run faster than Sepeng’s best of 1:42:69.
Paul Tergat (Kenya)
Undoubtedly the greatest cross-country runner of all time, Kenya’s Paul Tergat won the world title a stunning five times in succession from 1995 to 1999. Surprisingly, Tergat started his running career late in life, only after he joined the Kenyan army in 1991. Before that time he had focused his energies on basketball! Now, besides his amazing cross-country successes, Tergat owns the world record for the half marathon – a blistering 59 minutes and 17 seconds set at the Milan Half Marathon – as well as two Olympic silver medals in the 10 000 metres. He has now turned his attention to the marathon and people in the know are waiting with bated breath for Tergat to break the world record in that prestigious event.
Josiah Thugwane (South Africa)
Very few
people, even in South Africa, were aware of who Josiah Thugwane was before the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. By the end of the Games the whole world knew his name. Running in the final athletics’ event, the marathon, Thugwane blew away the field to capture the prestigious title. His victory was the first Olympic gold medal ever won by a black South African athlete. The diminutive Thugwane – standing only 1.58 metres tall and weighing just 45 kilograms - overcame great odds to win the title, surviving a hijacking attempt in which he was shot just prior to the Olympics. Injuries unfortunately plagued Thugwane after his Olympic success. However, he can list among his achievements victories in the South African Marathon Championships and the Fukuoka Marathon (won in a national record 2:07:28), as well as top 10 finishes in the London, New York City and the Dong-A Seoul Marathons. His win in Atlanta, though, will forever top his list of achievements.
| 
