The International Amateur Athletic Federation announced today that it has granted temporary affiliation to the new, unified South African track and field body and invited a 30-member team to the World Championships at Tokyo in August.
The announcement virtually ended a 15-year international ban on South Africa for its apartheid policies.The IAAF said its decision was based on recommendations by an all-African delegation which visited South Africa twice this year and triggered the merging of the three South African track bodies into a new federation.
The temporary affiliation will run until Aug. 20, when the IAAF Congress at Tokyo is expected to vote South Africa as a full member, IAAF president Primo Nebiolo said.
In the interim, South African athletes will be allowed to compete only in Africa and against African athletes. Their results, however, will be fully recognized by the IAAF.
The IAAF will recognize results by South African athletes after Jan. 1, 1990, in terms of reaching qualifying standards for the World Championships.
The IAAF will provide free travel and full board for 30 members of the South African track and team, Nebiolo said. At present, 38 South African athletes have achieved the qualifying marks for Tokyo.
The leading South African competitors are sprinters Tsikile Nzimande, 20.33 seconds in the men's 200 meters; Evette de Klerk, 11.27 in the women's 100 and 22.71 in the 200; hurdler Myrtle Bothma, 54.27 in the women's 400-meter hurdles, and milers Zola Budd-Pieterse and Elana Meyer.
South Africa had been banned by the IAAF in 1976. It was an all-white federation at the time.
Nebiolo said that technically the IAAF was dealing with an application for new membership, and not the reinstatement of a suspended federation. The new South African federation came from the unification of the three previous bodies: the Board, the Congress and the Union.