WHY THE ELEPHANT?

Why the elephant as a sporting symbol you may well ask! Elephants are generally associated with bulk, sloth and placidity - except when they are angry or frightened!

The elephant was chosen many years ago as the official provincial sporting symbol for the Eastern Cape province of South Africa for certain acknowledged sports categories.

This was prior to the 1994 non-racial elections and, up to that time, the sport of waveski surfing was not a recognised provincial sport and unable to adopt the elephant as sporting symbol. Instead the first E.P. committee designed a stylised 'waveskier on a wave' emblem, which is still included in the Association's official letterhead. (See top right.) After the non-racial elections, the re-organised government sporting body permitted the use of regional symbols by previously unacknowledged sport codes.

The elephant symbol has its derivation in the high concentration of elephants that used to populate the local countryside during the 18th & 19th centuries. The Eastern Cape still has about 300 elephants mostly contained in the Addo Elephant National Park, some 80km outside Port Elizabeth, the commercial capital of the Eastern Cape.

To us the elephant is a symbol of pride, denoting both strength and intelligence, and is a sort after accolade. To gain one's E.P. colours is second only to gaining one's national colours.

(Copyright � Eastern Province Waveski Association, 2002)