The South African Sports Confederation & Olympic Committee has "announced a revamped funding programme for athletes," according to David Isaacson of SOWETAN LIVE. However, the Olympic body "cast doubt" on whether Olympic 800m Silver Medalist Caster Semenya would compete at the World Championships in Moscow in August. SASCOC CEO Tubby Reddy explained that Athletics SA "had nominated Semenya for OpEx funding," but that the federation's High Performance Manager, Hezekiel Sepeng, "had admitted that the Limpopo athlete had been inactive lately." Reddy: "She is not training, she is not participating, she may not go to the world championships." The new OpEx program "has four tiers of funding" for potential Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games athletes, stretching it "beyond those enjoying top-eight world rankings, with the list of recipients being reviewed every six months." Sascoc spent R70.7M on athletes through OpEx from '09-12, and by March next year it is expecting to spend between R20M ($2M) and R22M ($2.3M) (SOWETAN LIVE, 5/23).
