Sports DG: If you don’t want athletes to look like Ninja Turtles, sponsor them

South Africa’s Olympians didn’t have a choice but to wear the baggy tracksuits at this year’s Rio Olympics because they were sponsored.

Gideon Sam, president of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), the controlling body for all high-performance sports in South Africa, explained to Parliament that the tracksuits worn by SA Olympians were sponsored by a Chinese company, and it cost more than R20 million to kit out South African sport teams over a four-year period.

The tracksuits were criticised by sports fans for being ugly, oversized and outdated.