African swimming team at the Olympic Games.

He is black.

That is a sign of the times for a country which had been roundly despised for its overtly racist policies until earlier this year when a white majority voted to abolish apartheid.

The road for the troubled republic back into acceptance in international business and sporting circles has been rough and Sam, 42, acknowledges that there is still some way to go.

The massacre at Boipatong in June threatened South Africa's readmittance into the Olympic family for the first time in 24 years but the powerful African National Congress (ANC) gave the go-ahead for sporting links with the outside world to be continued.

And so at the 25th Olympiad, black light-flyweight boxer Fana Thwala became the first South African to compete.

"We go by the feelings from the ground in south Africa these days,'' said Sam the ANC decisions to support the Olympic team. "The majority of the people in sport are saying we mustn't make the same mistakes that our brothers in Africa made, like Namibia and Zimbabwe. When independence came they were not ready to compete internationally, they had not done their homework properly.

"And that is why we decided to form the National Olympic and Sports Congress and we lobbied internationally to get recognition and support because it's black-led.

"We went all over the world. We were invited to make our standpoint, and we told them that our basic philosophy was to prepare the black man and to unite all federations in the country and to develop. Once the federations have united, we demand a very, very comprehensive development programme.'' Now that blacks have a stronger voice in South Africa through ANC leader Nelson Mandela, there are still barriers to be broken down if they want to be afforded the same luxuries in sport as whites.

Sam said: "In our country we have had disadvantages for many years. If you look around now you will see that those competing internationally are those who have the money and those who have had the advantage -- advantages in terms of more money being put into their sport.'' There are five South African blacks, including Sam, who have administrative responsibilities here as well as six black athletes. though the games are not yet over, their first priority has long been accomplished -- participation.

Next up will be returning to their homeland and spreading the word to the black townships.

"We are learning here. we're learning a lot here and we can now go back with the group that we have; the group of blacks that we have in this team here from the management side and from the competitors' side. We can now go back, regroup, and tell our brothers and sisters, `Look, if you want to get to Atlanta (site of the 1996 Olympics), these are the things that we need to look into.' "We think that the support hat the leader of the African National congress, Comrade Mandela, is giving us is precisely because of that. We must prepare ourselves and we must look forward.'' Sam's specialty in sport is swimming. as facilities wee so far away from the area where he grew up, the western Cape, he was forced to learn his trade at a dam on a nearby river.

Segregation made it impossible for blacks to take advantage of better facilities, and now that times are changing, the underprivileged have another problem -- facilities are often a long way away, and in white neighbourhoods.

"I was fortunate because I lived near a seaside resort. for most of our people the facilities were there but they were segregated. So, the only people who had the advantages of actually making used of those facilities were the white guys. and now that we've united we're saying to them that we also need to get there.

"Many of the countries, I've spoken to quite a number of managers here, they too are struggling with facilities. But in our country it is something else, the facilities are there but they are very far away from our living quarters.

"Because of the colossal separation it is all out there in the white suburbs and how do you get your black people from the townships to actually go those suburbs? But we are now saying to our white brethren, `Look, if you want us to be supportive of the unity process we will have to do something about the facilities. It is now beginning to ha