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Team Eastern Cape hit the ground running with practice sessions on Thursday after congregating for their camps the previous day ahead of the Winter National School Sport Championships starting in KuGompo City on Saturday.
The Winter Games, expected to attract about 3,000 people, including athletes, technical officials, team managers and parents from all nine provinces, includes hockey, rugby, volleyball and soccer and will run until late on Monday afternoon at venues across the metro.
While the Eastern Cape teams were already hitting their straps and plotting strategies, sides from most of the provinces only descended on KuGompo City on Thursday afternoon, Eastern Cape department of sport spokesperson Andile Nduna said.
“The provinces will have Friday only to put their final touches because some of them only got here on Thursday in the afternoon and could not practise as they had to sort accommodation and logistics matters,” he said.
Nduna said the Eastern Cape had a contingent of 254 players and staff for the games, almost double the size of the 133-member team the province sent to KwaZulu-Natal in 2025.
The idea, Nduna said, was to boost the province’s medal count this year.
Only Gauteng has a bigger crew, believed to number more than 270.
The Eastern Cape finished third overall in the medal table last year, behind KwaZulu-Natal and eventual winners Western Cape.
Their medal tally included one gold for netball, two silver medals for the rugby teams, while one of the netball sides brought home a bronze medal.
The U15 boys and girls are expected to win medals again this year.
While the hockey, volleyball and football teams did not train on Thursday, the province’s rugby teams were sweating it out at St Christopher’s Private School in Kidd’s Beach, determined to scoop a gold medal this time round after falling short in 2025.
The Western Cape, which secured first place in both the girls’ and boys’ categories, will be their fierce competitors.
The two provinces will avoid each other in the group stages and can only meet in the semifinals or possibly in the final on Monday, as they are in separate groups.
The Eastern Cape teams are grouped with Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
They start their campaign against KZN on Saturday at Stirling High (9.45am) before tackling Limpopo at 1.45pm.
They will then play Mpumalanga at 10am on Sunday.
The Eastern Cape Hockey U14 boys and girls will play at the Stirling Astro Turf.
In a Hockey5s format, they are expected to play all the provinces on Saturday and Sunday.
The top two teams in the mini-league will meet in the final on Monday at 10.30am while the third and fourth-ranked teams will play against each other to determine the medallists.
The Eastern Cape Volleyball teams (U14 and U17) will play their matches at Clarendon High and the iYunivesithi Walter Sisulu’s Potsdam campus.
The football teams’ programme for the weekend had not been made available to the Daily Dispatch by the time of publication.
But the games will be at Baysville High and Beaconhurst for the U17 (girls), U15 (boys and girls) and U17 (boys) on Saturday and Sunday.
On Monday, the Buffalo City Metro Stadium will host the football finals of all the age groups.
The opening ceremony is on Saturday at 5pm at Calvary Church in Quigney, with the closing ceremony at the same venue on Monday.
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