Olympics

Ramsamy said while in the UK, he joined the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (Sanroc) and would later become the chairperson in 1976 until 1990.

“I kept thinking how I could isolate South Africa from international sport as it was the only way to show white-South Africans that everyone should be able to participate. Sanroc played a major role in South Africa being excluded from the Olympic Games in 1966, and from the entire Olympic movement in 1970. After the committee was closed down in South Africa, the founder went into exile in the UK where he reopened it. I joined him."

Ramsamy said on his return to South Africa in the early 1990s, he continued in his strides to remove the colour ban on sports.

“It was also during this time that the late former president Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I worked closely with the ANC. My father was a member of the Congress of Trade Unions and they had association with the ANC.

“I remember there were meetings between some white sports administrators and politicians together with the ANC members, who were largely in exile. I got involved as I was in charge of the sports boycotts. They said now we have to look for ways and means to tell the white people we are not against them, but instead the policy that they only benefited from. We wanted everyone to benefit."

Ramsamy said they approached the International Olympic Committee (IOC)to see whether they could get South Africa back into the games before it became a democracy.

“We also wanted to make a statement on equality. We formed the Interim National Olympics Committee of South Africa, of which I later became the president.

“With the blessing of the white government, the ANC and IFP, I led the first non-racial South African team to the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. I was elated as it wasn’t an easy journey. I still recall Mandela was invited to the games. He was seated with the heads of states."

Ramsamy said he was later elected as one of 105 board members of the IOC where he served until his retirement at age 80. He is currently an honorary member and can attend the Olympic Games.

In addition, Ramsamy wrote two books - Apartheid the Real Hurdle: Sport in South Africa and the International Boycott and Reflections on a Life in Sport.///////