FOUL PLAY
The poster boy of South African athletics.
The flag-bearer for them.
43.48 when he won in Beijing last year.
No South African has won this title for 96 years.
A century of history beckons for van Niekerk.
Can you imagine the adrenaline?
Mandela, Mandela!
Mandela says fight for freedom.
Mandela says freedom now. Mandela says freedom now.
Oh, we say away with slavery
in our land of Africa.
A PART
GIVEN THE NAME IN 1948,
APARTHEID WAS A GOVERMENT-LED POLICY
OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND SEGREGATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
IN WHICH THE WHITE RACE DOMINATED ALL FACETS OF LIFE
AND THE NON-WHITE MAJORITY HAD FEW RIGHTS
Sport has the power to change the world.
What makes the sporting thread
of the much larger South African story
so poignant and so powerful and so important
is the fact that it was a mirror of what the society was.
It was racially segregated.
ODESSA SWARTS, AN EXCEPTIONAL SPRINTER,
WAS EXCLUDED FROM COMPETING INTERNATIONALLY
AND WAS NOT RECOGNISED FOR HER ACHIEVEMENTS
BECAUSE OF HER RACE.
What I love most about running is just getting away
from my daily circumstances.
We didn't have it easy.
And I think doing athletics just made me forget
about everything and anything.
I can just cut off everything around me
that is not good for myself.
And not having to think about anything
for an hour and a half or so.
ELANA MEYER, AN INCREDIBLE DISTANCE RUNNER,
WAS ALSO EXCLUDED FROM COMPETING INTERNATIONALLY
BECAUSE OF THE SPORTS BOYCOTT IN RESPONSE TO APARTHEID.
When I started running,
I think the first thing that I fell in love with
was the fact that I could own it.
I loved when I was out in nature, I could explore.
It was a space that I really enjoyed being in.
I love the fact that when I go out there,
you can let your mind go and just for a period of time,
you're sort of just in another world.
Sports people in South Africa who are black,
the ceiling was very, very low.
If one was black,
that black person can never represent South Africa
in international sport.
My first year at high school
was when the battle in South Africa
was at its worst. I remember going to my first day at school
and I remember we all having to duck and dive
and lie flat on the ground
because there were rubber bullets going everywhere
and tear gas going everywhere.
There's a big battle about wanting
what our white brothers and sisters have.
So during Apartheid, as now,
the vast majority of people in South Africa
are the indigenous people of the country,
black South Africans.
How did a small minority take a grip on a country
and hold that grip for as long as they did
in as powerful a way as they did?
On one level, the answer's really quite simple.
That power was taken
at gun point.
1962 - NELSON MANDELA IMPRISONED
What is important for us to
note is that the whites were the only ones
who were allowed to represent South Africa internationally.
So because of this,
that is when black South Africans realise
the only way to overcome this is to make sure that
the black South Africans who are good at sport
are recognised overseas.
And how can that be done?
Is that we needed to exclude
the white South African organisations
from international sports.
The first moment that I realised that I could run
was when I was 13 years old.
And it was 21 kilometres
stretching from one town, Napier,
to another town, Bredasdrop.
And I can just remember when I entered the town,
nobody caught me, nobody passed me.
And then I went onto
win my first half marathon at the age of 13 years old.
From the next year, I started getting coaching,
moved to a bigger school.
Our coaches were our teachers
so we didn't have specific coaches that we trained with.
I had a teacher, Mr Cleffi-Boison
and he took me under his wings
He started coaching me.
And he also then became sort of the father figure in my life.
He supported me in many, many ways.
And under his reins, I had become a very good athlete.
And that's where everything started for me.
That's where I found
that I could actually make something of this.
The organisations that pushed for the sports boycott outside
of South Africa and the individuals who led that fight,
like Sam Ramsamy,
played an incredibly important role.
Especially at a time when opposition
within the country was being so
brutally and successfully suppressed,
they kept all this on the agenda.
The IOC then realised
that it is a fact that black people are being discriminated.
Not because they agreed but because the lobby from
the African IOC members and together
with the lobby from the Soviet block of countries
said, "Well, if South Africa is going to take part because
"it's going to be a white South African team,
"we will not take part."
And then, South Africa was excluded from participating
in the Olympic games of 1964 held in Tokyo.
1964 TOKYO SOUTH AFRICA EXCLUDED
1968 MEXICO CITY SOUTH AFRICA EXCLUDED
1972 MUNICH SOUTH AFRICA EXCLUDED
In 1976, when he had the Olympic Games in Montreal,
the New Zealand Rugby Union decided to tour South Africa.
So the African countries said, "We have to do something
"to prevent the New Zealand rugby team
"coming to South Africa."
Nevertheless, the New Zealand rugby team came.
THE IOC'S REFUSAL TO BAN NEW ZEALAND FROM THE 1976 MONTREAL
OLYMPIC GAMES SPARKED AN OUTRAGE,
RESULTING IN 30 AFRICAN NATIONS BOYCOTTING THE GAMES.
So the African countries said
"Look, we can't take part in the Olympic Games."
And as a result, all the African countries withdrew
from the Olympic games in 1976.
Black people were not just oppressed as black people
but they were oppressed as people
who were by law, forced to be poor
and unable to develop advantage for themselves.
So with that as a framework,
sport played out, in every single possible way,
within those confines.
So it affected what facilities black people
were able to access.
Well, we didn't have any facilities.
There were no facilities to train on.
The only grounds that we trained on
was the grass that was on the school premises.
Obviously, because of the way the schools were structured,
we had schools for white South Africans,
for coloured South Africans, mixed race,
for black South Africans.
In high school level, I trained with my school.
I had shoes that I trained with
but ultimately when you're lining up for a full race,
I felt faster without shoes.
So at least I had some training shoes I could train with.
In my instance, I had a single mother
so she couldn't always afford to buy what I needed.
So... Yeah, so for most of my life, I ran bare feet
until one of my teachers at school
bought me a pair of spikes.
And I remember the first time
buying my own pair of tackies was we had a...
I was about 16, we had an invitational meeting
at UWC that was a tartan track.
And I remember being the best athlete at the night
177 and I won 500 rand,
And it was the biggest gift I actually ever gave myself.
And that was buying myself a pair of tackies.
1980 MOSCOW SOUTH AFRICA REMAINS EXCLUDED
DURING THE 1980S AT THE HEIGHT OF APARTHEID, ELANA MEYER
WAS EXCLUDED FROM COMPETITING ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE.
ODESSA SWARTS WAS ALSO EXCLUDED
FROM COMPETING INTERNATIONALLY,
AND FAILED TO BE RECOGNISED AT THE LOCAL LEVEL
BECAUSE OF HER RACE.
STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA
I didn't have the privilege to compete internationally
for many years because of the system.
Since I was nine years old,
I always wanted to go to the Olympics.
But that was in the midst of Apartheid.
I missed out '84 Olympics, '88 Olympics.
That was the time when I started shifting my goals.
So when I started raising the bar,
my times even improved further
and even though I couldn't compete against athletes
on the track, I competed against them with my times.
Because of apartheid,
our records and our achievements were never
acknowledged because you had your whites on their own
and you had the coloured and blacks on their own.
And the only way how we could measure ourselves
with everyone else in South Africa was to watch on TV
because the whites' meetings were always broadcast on TV.
And you could then say, "But I would have beat this person."
"I would have run faster than that person."
That's the only way how we could measure our achievements.
1984 LOS ANGELES SOUTH AFRICA STILL EXLCUDED
1988 SEOUL SOUTH AFRICA STILL EXCLUDED
WITH GROWING INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE AND FEAR OF A DOMESTIC
RACIAL CIVIL WAR, THEN PRESIDENT FW DE KLERK
RELEASED NELSON MANDELA ON FEB 11TH 1990
AFTER SERVING 27 YEARS AS A POLITICAL PRISONER.
There's Mr Mandela. Mr Nelson Mandela, a free man,
taking his first steps into a new South Africa.
I think if you were committed to the end of Apartheid,
its complete uprooting,
then you had to support the sports boycott.
Firstly because it worked.
So in 1991, I became the interim president
of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa.
And then we took the first team.
Although it was largely white,
but we took the non-racial team
to the Olympic games in Barcelona in 1992.
The integrated team from South Africa
returning to the games after a 32-year absence
because of its government policy of Apartheid,
the separation of races.
The opening ceremony in Barcelona
was absolutely incredible.
The setting of the Olympic stadium on the top of Montjuic
was just such an exceptional venue.
It was such a special, special moment for me.
To all of us, Elana Meyer represented South Africa
in all its manifestations.
I went into the Olympic final and I had a plan.
I had a plan B. I had a plan C.
I know myself. I knew my competitors.
I knew Derartu Tulu's in the race.
She can run the last lap under 60 seconds.
Our spots clipped a couple of times in the race.
I felt her presence all along, she was just behind me.
Then going into the last lap, she went past me.
And she won the race.
Even though I didn't win gold, that day
felt and meant gold to me.
But on the day, I really celebrated an opportunity
that I was waiting for a very, very long time.
BY WINNING SILVER IN 1992, ELANA MEYER FULFILLED HER
DREAMS BY BECOMING THE FIRST SOUTH AFRICAN TO EARN A MEDAL
IN TRACK AND FIELD IN THE OLYMPICS IN OVER 30 YEARS.
IN THE SAME YEAR, ODESSA SWART'S LIFE
ALSO CHANGED FOREVER.
BLOEMFONTEIN, SOUTH AFRICA
I did very well from the age of 14 until 18.
I had made the provincial
as well as other teams every single year.
They were all those big names
that I looked up to and admired but I never had the dream
of becoming them.
I think, maybe, because knowing that
living in the Apartheid era,
you won't ever have the opportunity.
So when I was 17, I fell pregnant with Wayde.
He was born 29 weeks premature.
He also needed a blood transfusion
in the first 24 hours of his life.
And it was tough.
It took a lot of praying that night
because there's so many things going through your head,
not knowing if your child is going to be OK.
Is he going to be alive?
Mentally myself, I wasn't prepared
to help me through that period
because it was very, very tough to raise this premature baby.
But I struggled quite a bit to do mum work and running.
So I chose to totally leave the running
and that's how everything changed from my running career
to just being a mum to Wayde.
And now I've just got to look forward and move forward
and just try to better my life and my kids' life.
BORN JULY 15TH 1992, ODESSA SWARTS' SON
WAYDE VAN NIEKERK W
OULD HAVE THE DREAM OF COMPETING IN THE OLYMPICS.
In 1992, when South Africa was admitted for the first time
after its long isolation into the Olympic movement,
it represented to me, it is the beginning,
a starting point for reconstruction.
And since 1992, South Africa
has taken part in every Olympic Games,
both summer and winter.
And under the stadium getting ready,
South African Wayde van Niekerk.
He's a rising star. Came onto the scene last year
upsetting Karani James
and LaShawn Merrit to win the World Championships.
We have the fourth, the sixth, and the eighth fastest men ever
in the same race taking the track
303 for this men's 400 metre final,
Well, the road to the Olympics was very tough for Wayde.
Because he was just so frustrated
with his back and his hamstrings forever being sore.
Because he would come home some nights, and he would say,
"I think I don't think I want to do athletics any more."
And tomorrow morning, six o'clock,
I would hear the shower open
and he'll be gone back to the gym.
And thinking back home of his mother, Odessa, who was
a world-class athlete herself
but denied the chance to compete internationally
because of the Apartheid rules in South Africa.
I'm certain it was Odessa who inspired Wayde
to where he is now.
Without the help of Odessa,
Wayde could not have been that good
because I believe that the inspiration, the motivation,
everything has certainly come from Odessa.
Everyone started sending messages
about "What you think about Wayde running in lane eight?"
and "It's never happened."
and "He'll never be able to win."
History's against him and that's because no man
has ever won a global championship
329 at 400 out of lane eight,
Let's take a look at Wayde van Niekerk's start.
He's outside in lane eight.
As I have said, nobody has ever won the Olympics
or the World Championships out of lane eight.
He's out there blind.
Set.
Mandela, Mandela!
Mandela says fight for free.
Mandela says freedom now. Mandela says freedom now.
Oh, we say away with slavery.
In our land of Africa.
Freedom is in our hands. Freedom is in our hands.
Show us the way to freedom.
In our land of Africa.
Freedom is in your hands.
What an achievement - Olympic record, world record.
A record that was held by Michael Johnson
for so many years.
And the praise that he got from everybody including
Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson.
Guess what Michael Johnson?
The word record has been destroyed.
Wayde van Niekerk puts together the performance of his life.
It was a moment the I am glad I was there to experience.
It's a moment that I know I will cherish
for the rest of my life.
It's really a special feeling.
And at the same time,
I know I've got a responsibility now to try
and put out a good role model or idol
out there for those looking out for me.
At the same time, with my mother herself,
it's really something special
knowing that I can carry on her legacy.
And I'm really honoured to carry not just her name,
but my whole family's name.
Wayde van Niekerk is probably the most inspirational athlete
South Africa has ever produced.
I think to be able to go to the Olympic Games
to not only win gold but to break the world's record.
He's humble, he's inspirational.
And certainly somebody I look up to
and know that will inspire a whole new generation.
I said, "Wayde, I've chosen to present the medal
376 "for the 400 metres race and I am going to present you
"with the goal medal."
Winning the gold medal at the Olympic games in Rio,
it represented unbounding possibilities for South Africa.
I'm part of the new generation
where we're trying to build a new legacy for the country.
And at the same time, we're taking the past with us.
At this moment, it's not what's important to me right now.
What's important to me right
now is trying to build a new image and
a new legacy for the country.
Sport is a leveller.
Sport can bring everybody together.
The Olympics is the most important single word,
if I might say,
in bringing sport together in all of its manifestations.
Too many to mention. It brings in peace.
It brings in integration. It brings in understanding.
And this is what the intention of the IOC is.
My name is Elana Meyer.
For many years, I was a professional athlete.
Nowadays, I am one of the ambassadors
and part of the organising team of the Capetown Marathon.
My name is Odessa Swarts. I'm the mother of three kids.
One being Wayde van Niekerk.
It's 27 years later.
There's still structures that remind
of being brought up in the years of Apartheid,
but I think there's many things that have been broken down.
And all athletes have got the freedom of choice to choose
how to pursue their own life.
Anyone can decide where they want to go,
how far they want to go, how high they want to jump.
I was meant to go through everything,
I was meant to go through hardship.
I believe that it wasn't meant for me.
I was never meant to be great.
But I was meant to be the mother of someone great.
I'm a very strong believer in what Nelson Mandela said
back in the nineties.
Sport certainly has got the power to change the world.