Matt Smith

Yeah, three years from zero.

It's been an unbelievable journey.

And actually, it's not three, it's two because you qualified the year before.

So I'd lost a year before I started.

Simi, as you said that, I just wanted to say something that has been a running thread throughout my journey.

You can't be what you can't see.

And I think you paving the way, you talk about Nigeria as a country.

I mean, most people are surprised that it has, I mean,

pushing quarter of a billion population, right?

That'll be on par with the US in probably the next 20 years or so.

What an unbelievable source of talent that could and should find its way through every sport.

But as you quite rightly said, the pathways are not necessarily set there.

And I think as athletes, we also have a responsibility to be role models, but also to pave that way.

you know, if you were to use the metaphor of snow, you know, if you walk through fresh snow, you know, you make a path for the person behind you, then they make it a bit more streamlined and it just gets better.

You know, even if it's still snowing, there's a pathway for others to come.

And it's no different in this sense.

So I think, you know, the amazing work you've done in the last sort of coming to a decade now to support athletes going to further future games.

And it's something that I take on with great pride that I see, how can I contribute to the next wave of South African athletes by bringing in

North, south, south, north, be it funding, flows of knowledge, experience, and talent to hopefully, and I feel confidently, be more represented in games to come.

You're right.