SA Athletics programme has gone through its leadership challenges in the last six years due to some administrative challenges. This resulted in some sponsors pulling out and when Aleck Skhosana took over as Athletics South Africa (AS) President three years ago together with his team they had a lot of challenges to deal with. And today he had a broad smile. outh African athletics calendar will never be the same again following the launch of the Athletix Grand Prix Series in Johannesburg today. This series gets underway in March next year and it will see the countries top athletes competing against their international counterparts in three meetings around the country. Close to R1,4million in prize money will be on offer throughout this Grand Prix Series. In recent years SA athletes like Wayde van Niekerk, Caster Semenya, Akani Simbine, Luvo Manyonga and many others have been making headlines, clinching gold medals and world titles. Simbine, the 100m national champion and record holder sees a direct link between this new competition and SA athletes improved global profile.Henricho Bruintjies was amongst the first sprinters to break the 10-second barrier in the national 100m. He’s amongst the current golden generation of sprinters and is excited by this new series. Jobodwana didn’t have a good 2017 season, as he couldn’t qualify for the IAAF World Champs also following an unsatisfactory Rio Olympics performance last year. The 2015 World Champs 200m bronze medalist sees the new competition and addition to the ASA calendar as a great concept for local athletes