Gert Potgieter, fondly known as Oom Gert, is a board member of the TuksClub 60+ Alumni Club. He is well known for his sporting accolades as a track and field athlete – in fact, he was voted SA male athlete of the 20^th century.

But it is the 82-year-old’s unremitting pursuit for equality in sports that will become his legacy, having founded the first multiracial school sport federation in South Africa and national Olympic academy. 

Potgieter has been recognised for his contributions to township sports for nearly half a century, and credits the University of Pretoria (UP) and its staff with having played an indispensable role in his success. “I consider UP one of the highlights of my life,” says the former athlete who worked as a sports manager at the university. 

While the story of Potgieter’s participation in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics is well known (he fell on the last hurdle and finished sixth), the story of him finding his life’s mission after his career ended prematurely after a car accident in Germany, two weeks before the 1960 Rome Olympics, is what he is arguably more celebrated for. In 1961 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tasked Potgieter with, among others, starting a non-racial Olympic academy in South Africa. “I was full of dynamite,” he says. “I wanted to start the Olympic academy but without [adhering to] apartheid policies.”

But Frank Waring, an ex-Springbok rugby player and the Minister of Sport for the National Party at the time reminded Potgieter about the regime’s stance. “He was very polite and told me that even though the IOC’s constitution made provision for equality, the apartheid regime did not.” Potgieter’s efforts for desegregated Olympic sports had been scuppered – for the moment.

When Piet Koornhof succeeded Waring, Potgieter approached the government again. But Koornhof made it known that the government did not recognise equal trials, training or teams – sport was to remain segregated. In a later encounter at Koornhof’s Pretoria home, Potgieter recalls telling him he had heard the minister’s broadcast on Radio Africa during which he had stated that apartheid policies were effectively dead. “I accused him of double standards,” says Potgieter. “He asked who I was to confront him in his own home and that ‘the door was over there’ if I wanted to do that. I took the door.”

The former hurdler was not about to give up. When Gerrit Viljoen, a former rector of Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg), took up office as Minister of Education in 1980, Potgieter approached him about the feasibility of the Olympic academies. Once again, the answer was no; in fact, Viljoen told him that mixed academies would be an embarrassment to the government. That’s when Potgieter took matters into his own hands and established an integrated sports federation in secret.

In 1985, the federation took a team of high school students from Soweto and Grey College in Bloemfontein to an athletics meet in Belgium. Due to the status of South African Airways as the national carrier of the apartheid regime, the white Grey College students flew the airline, while the black students travelled on German airline Lufthansa. “The kids got on like a house on fire,” says Potgieter. “I wasn’t a politician, but I knew sport needed to be mixed and everyone given a fair chance.” However, when the media reported on the trip, Viljoen ordered the federation’s termination.

The following year, Potgieter quietly carted yet another integrated team to Europe, this time to Luxembourg for an international schools soccer competition. In an attempt to keep South Africa’s name out of the media, Potgieter entered the multiracial team under the name “Bophuthatswana”, which was mistaken in Luxembourg for Botswana.

The team won the tournament, but it proved to be a bittersweet victory as this only drew attention to them, resulting in Potgieter once again being summoned by Viljoen. “He told me, ‘Now you stop your nonsense. You’re really embarrassing this government,’” Potgieter recalls with a chuckle.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait much longer: in 1989, then President FW de Klerk approved the establishment of a non-segregated Olympic training academy. “He told me: ‘Gertjie, go ahead,’” Potgieter says. The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee was finally recognised in 1991.

Potgieter points out that UP personnel at the time played a unique role in his accomplishments, especially Dr Poppy Masinga, Philemon Muamba, Dr Peet du Toit and Engela van der Klashorst, among others. He also describes previous rectors Danie Joubert and Philip Smit as being “philosophical and open to conversation”. Former Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Cheryl de la Rey, he says, is someone whom he “respects immensely”. Potgieter is also excited by current Vice-Chancellor and Principal Professor Tawana Kupe and his mission to “transform lives, communities and sectors”.

Today, the former athlete and transformation activist is an avid camper and wildlife photographer. He still makes time to travel to the Pilanesberg and Kruger National Parks, where, rather than opting for luxurious accommodation, he camps. “While one still has one’s health,” he says.