Kass Blog

gsport Editor Kass Naidoo pictured with the National Women’s Cricket team, after visiting the team at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria to share tips on how to deal with the media.

2008 is finally upon us… Happy New Year to you and your loved
ones! My hope is that this New Year brings you loads of happiness and
success. It will be a big year for our female sports stars, as the
countdown begins to the Olympic Games in Beijing. At gsport, we’re
looking forward to throwing our weight behind your efforts to bring
back those medals from China.

Yesterday, as we prepared to celebrate the coming of the New Year, I
couldn’t help but marvel at how the gsport initiative has grown since
it launched back in August 2006.

When it launched, we hoped that with time the principles of the
initiative would catch on and at some stage in the future, gsport would
get the kind of support it needed to fulfill its role of raising the
profile of women in sport.

National women’s hockey captain Marsha Marescia, SuperSport’s Cindy Grota, freelance journalist Karien Jonckheere, Independent Newspaper’s Nazli Thomas, and freelance journalist Ruth Africa pose for the cameras at gsport’s launch back in August 2006.

Nothing could have prepared us for the overwhelming support this
initiative has received over the past 16 months. So much so that at
midnight last night, gsport had recorded an incredible number of hits since
its debut on the ‘net in August 2006, including over 3 million hits in
2007 alone!

2007 also saw gsport sign its first commercial partner
in Clinique, one of the world’s leading brands of prestige skin care,
makeup and fragrance products. We’re delighted that this top
international brand saw the potential in this initiative and we look
forward to continuing a great relationship with Clinique.

Your
support of the gsport initiative shows that women’s sport is alive
despite the limited financial backing, and with continued support, it
can and will grow into many commercially-viable products.

But, let’s not kid ourselves, not everyone feels this way.
Symptomatic of a prevailing negativity about our country’s wealth in
women’s sporting talent, a week ago the Sunday Times featured in its
double-page review of South African sport in 2007 a sole sentence about
women’s sport: "SA’s female sports stars – a contradiction in terms."

gsport’s Inaugural Hall of Fame inductee Penny Heyns hands over the coveted award to gsport’s 2007 Hall of Famer, 80’s netball phenomenon Hazel Gumede.

This in a year that saw (among many other deserving notables)
Ashleigh Simon turning pro and winning the LET’s Catalonia Ladies
Masters in Spain; Natalie du Toit and Suzaan van Biljon achieve
medal-winning performances in the pool; many ups and downs on the
athletics, soccer, hockey and netball fields across the world; a
first-ever international cricket tour to Holland and Great Britain; and
South Africa’s female surf stars taking their profile to a whole new
level.

What we’ve realised at gsport is that it’s not about how others
perceive women’s sport, but what we can do to support our vast range of
talented female athletes. And that’s my message to you: Work tirelessly
to raise your profile and the profile of your sport -tangible results
are already there to see, as you continue to make the difference!

If we concentrate on the negative sentiments being thrown around by
those who don’t care, then we are relinquishing our power, in effect
saying that we can’t make a difference. There is no doubt that we can
build a powerful South African women’s sports brand together.

gsport’s first ever Cover Girl, celebrated mountaineer Deshun Deysel, looks beautiful after receiving a makeover from Clinique.

I urge you to read (and re-read!) this month’s Play Sport feature,
which has invaluable information and tips on how to turn your sporting
talent into a top sports star package, with keys to pursuing undeniable
appeal to sponsors.

Know this: whatever you do, gsport will be behind you, urging you
on, and celebrating your successes. If you need advice or just a
shoulder to lean on, we are there for you. If we can’t assist you, we
will find someone who can. gsport has some wonderful developments
planned for 2008 and we look forward to sharing those with you in the
months to come. Thank you for your support! It means more than you can
imagine…

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