Team South Africa settle on World Championships squad

While Athletics South Africa (ASA) initially named a final squad of 24 athletes for the IAAF World Championships -- which drew criticism from Wayde van Niekerk and Akani Simbine among others -- Team SA will actually travel to London with 27 members.

The naming of the original team on Friday, 21 July came with the proviso that aggrieved athletes had the right to appeal over the weekend, before the list had to be submitted to the IAAF, world athletics' governing body.

As it happened, no additional athletes had been added when the squad was sent to the IAAF on Monday, 24 July... but one was cut, discus thrower Victor Hogan.

ASA reportedly believed that Hogan had set an A standard -- IAAF's entry standard of 65.00m -- at a meeting in Leiria, Portugal to rubber stamp his ticket to London 2017 the day before the initial list was revealed.

However, Hogan had actually thrown a best of 64.18m at that meeting so ASA then entered him as an Area Champion as he is the reigning African champion -- won in Durban last year.

All that effort proved pointless when the IAAF rejected Hogan's entry because he had been retrospectively banned for the period that covered the African Championships after testing positive for the banned substance methylhexanamine at the South African National Championships.

The ignominy of Hogan's exclusion no doubt have put a dampener on any 28th birthday plans he might have had for Tuesday.

A further, post-appeal, amendment concerned Caster Semenya. The star 800m runner appealed to be entered into the 1500m, in addition to the 800m which she is the clear favourite for gold, and that was approved without issue as she is the current African champion in both disciplines.