It’s a pleasant surprise to see that South Africa’s reigning UCI XCO Mountain Bike World Champion, Alan Hatherly, is one of three nominees for South Africa’s 2025 Sportsman of the Year, while Cycling South Africa is a finalist for Sports Federation of the Year. It’s also incredibly significant. Here’s why…
By Sean Badenhorst
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture announced the nominees for the 18th edition of the South African Sport Awards on Wednesday 6 August. We opened the press release with our usual scepticism about these awards, but were pleasantly surprised. This edition of the awards recognises South African sporting achievements from 1 January – 31 December 2024.
Why scepticism? Well, these annual awards haven’t exactly been truly reflective of the achievements of South African cyclists in previous years. An example, Greg Minnaar, whose Downhill racing career started before the annual awards was even launched, was given occasional recognition. Nothing like he should have though. Understanding the context of Downhill racing and his results and career longevity, Minnaar is undoubtedly one of the greatest ever South African sportsmen, but these awards never really acknowledged that.
The awards have also been quite inconsistent, depending who the Minister of Sport has been. Barring the incumbent, Gayton McKenzie, all previous ministers of sport over the past 18 years have been appointed by the ANC – predominantly with backgrounds in political activism and not experience or credibility sport, arts or culture.
Hatherly’s 2024 season is possibly one of the best ever by any mountain bike racer. Two XCO World Cup wins, one XCC World Cup win, bronze medal at the Olympic Games, bronze medal at the XCC World Champs, gold at the XCO World Champs, winner of the XCO World Series and ranked World No. 1 for more than five months!
If Hatherly hadn’t been a finalist, the South African Sports Awards for 2025 would have been considered a joke. But sadly, we would have just accepted it and moved on like we have in previous years. The fact that he has been recognised as one of three finalists is actually pretty awesome.
Will he win it? Let’s hope so. Chances are slim though because Hatherly is up against two men in sports with far higher profiles – sprinter Akani Simbine and Springbok rugby player Pieter-Steph du Toit. To be fair, those are really deserving finalists too.
Simbine has been most impressive this year, but his 2024 achievements are what he is nominated for and they include winning a silver medal in the 4x100m relay at the Paris Olympic Games and 4th in the Olympic 100m final in a new SA record of 9.82 seconds.
Du Toit, a member of the 2019 and 2023 World Cup winning Springbok teams, was named World Ruby Player of the Year for the second time in 2024, the only South African to win it twice.
In addition to the Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year categories, there is also a Sports Star of the Year category, which the press release calls, “the major award of the night”. In this, the finalists are Simbine, swimmer, Tatjana Smith and Paralympic track athlete, Mpumelelo Mhlongo.
It’s also great that Cycling South Africa is a finalist in the Sports Federation of the Year category. Although our best XCO racers, Hatherly, Candice Lill, Luke Moir and Tyler Jacobs. have carved their success out primarily themselves, they have had appropriate support from Cycling South Africa when necessary or possible. Last year was also Minnaar’s final World Cup racing season where he achieved third place at the Downhill World Cup at Les Gets, France – his 86th career World Cup podium. Lill, who had a breakout XCO season last year, also secured a bronze medal at the 2024 Marathon World Champs.
Cycling South Africa obviously also governs other cycling disciplines, including Road, Track, BMX, E-Sports and Paralympic, but Mountain Biking is by far its largest and most successful discipline. Cycling South Africa is up against Golf South Africa and South African Rugby Union as finalists for this award.
Pieter Du Preez, bronze medallist in the Men’s H1 Individual Time Trial at the 2024 Paralympics, has also made the top three in the Sportsman of the Year with a Disability category.
In the Coach of the Year category, there are no cycling-related coaches as finalists. They are: Jason Sewanyana(Paralympic), Rocco Meiring (Swimming) and Andries Kruger (Paralympic). It’s a tricky category really because not all coaching roles are always made public and some coaches form part of high performance teams. Often these finalists at the annual sports awards relate to a successful World Cup (team sports) or Olympic Games (individuals) campaign.
There are some incredibly successful South African cycling coaches currently, including Jeroen Swart, who works with Team UAE, John Wakefield, who works with Team Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe, Mike Posthumus, who is the performance coach for the Specialized Factory Racing team and Barry Austin, who currently coaches several top international XCO racers, including Candice Lill, Luke Moir, Tyler Jacobs, Mathis Azzaro, Filippo Colombo and Luca Schwarzbauer.
We’re not sure what the Technical Official of the Year category covers exactly, but it’s worth mentioning that Spook Groenewald (Olympic Games) and Deon Steyn (XCO World Champs) represented South Africa at the highest level of officiating in 2024. And South African trail-builder, Nick Floros, designed the 2024 Olympic Game mountain bike race course. None are finalists.
The 2025 South African Sports Awards will be held at the Sun City Superbowl on Sunday 24 August. Here are all the categories and nominees:
Sport Administrator of the Year: Gavin Crookes, Pholetsi Moseki, Hezekiel Sepeng
Recreation Body of the Year: Beaufort West Older Persons Club, Mac Masina Foundation, Made for More
Sport Volunteer of the Year: Phuti Lekoloane, Sandile Lukhele, Ingrid La Fleur
Youth/Junior Sport Star of the Year: Bayanda Walaza, Noah Bennett, Simoné Kruger
Youth/Junior Sport Team of the Year: Under 20 – 4×4 Relay, Under 19 Men’s Cricket Team, SA U19 Tug of War Men’s Team
Sport Visual Journalist of the Year: Roger Sedres, Phakamisa Lensman, Thulisile Dlamini
Sports Media Journalist of the Year: Stuart Hess, Charles Baloyi, Palesa Manaleng
Technical Official of the Year: Ernesta Strydom, Adrian Holdstock, Aimee Barrett-Theron
National Federation of the Year: Cycling South Africa, Golf South Africa, SA Rugby Union
Sport Team of the Year: 4x100m Men’s Team (Paris Olympics), Donald Ramphadi & Lucas Sithole, Protea Women Team – Cricket – T20
Coach of the Year: Jason Sewanyana, Rocco Meiring, Andries Kruger
Sportswoman of the Year with a Disability: Kgothatso Montjane, Simone Kruger, Minke Janse van Rensburg
Sportsman of the Year with a Disability: Mpumelelo Mhlongo, Pieter du Preez, Jean-Paul Veaudry
Sportswoman of the Year: Tatjana Smith, Tasneem Solomons, Laura Wolvaardt
Sportsman of the Year: Alan Hatherly, Akani Simbine, Pieter-Stephanus Du Toit
Sport Star of the Year: Akani Simbine, Tatjana Smith, Mpumelelo Mhlongo
