The All Africa Games in Algiers has been dubbed the All Africa Fun and Games by some South African participants, but parts of the fun have apparently not been all that funny.
Speaking from Algiers, Manase Makwela, the media liaison officer of the department of sports and recreation, confirmed yesterday that there had certainly been a spate of high and low jinks at the games - which Makhenkesi Stofile, the minister of sport, said earlier were not be treated contemptuously by South Africans just because they were taking place in Africa.
The minister had said this, however, before attending one of the games' medal ceremonies at which Die Stem, the old national anthem, rather than Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika, the new and official one, had blared out over the loudspeakers as two South African swimmers received their medals.
"It seems that the Algerian organisers felt our anthem was too long," said Makwela, "so they truncated it.
"But they cut off, so to speak, the wrong end. So the minister was there when 'Uit die blou van onse hemel' and nothing else was played."
Apparently Stofile, who has since returned to South Africa but was not taking phone calls over the weekend, was not amused.
Then there was the matter of feeding some of the South African athletes.
"Well," Makwela conceded, "there had some problems on the catering side. But these things happen - and the point is that, although some of the team had nothing to eat for a while, the embassy came though very fast and sorted it all out."
Makwela also said that there had been serious problems as far as medal tallies were concerned.
Apparently some of the local officials had not filled in the necessary paperwork properly, so a certain amount of huffing and puffing and argument had occurred among the Games' top teams: Algeria, South Africa and Egypt.
Regarding reports and television footage that showed one of South Africa's karate coaches bellowing that the local match officials were "completely useless", and had cost South Africa a medal due to their incompetence, and that he (the coach) had complained to the chief karate judge, Makwela said he would have to make further enquiries. - Additional reporting by Sapa