SOUTH AFRICA’S RETURN TO THE OLYMPICS : Getting Teams Ready to Be Toughest Task : Aftermath: Track and field athletes ready to compete, but those in other sports face difficulties.

For 31 years, South African sports officials sought to get back into the Olympic Games, an arena that was closed as part of an international ban preventing South African athletes from leaving their country to compete against the rest of the world.

Tuesday, South Africa finally reached its goal. The nation is now cleared to compete in the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona in July. However, South Africa’s first Olympic opportunity could come at the 1992 Winter Games at Albertville, France. Some Olympic officials have said that there would not be enough time for South Africa to prepare a team for those Games, which are only seven months away.

The International Olympic Committee announced in Lausanne, Switzerland, that it has formally recognized the South African Olympic Committee as its newest member, opening the door for the nation to compete in world championships in sports around the world.

But what now? South African sports officials might find that organizing, selecting and preparing teams for the Olympic Games within the next year could well prove to be more difficult than their years of lobbying the world to get into the Games. Sports leaders in South Africa acknowledge that they face enormous logistic and practical problems.

Among their concerns:

--After 31 years without the stimulus of international competition, how far behind the rest of the world are South African athletes?

--How will athletes who have never competed outside their country adjust to unfamiliar surroundings and potentially hostile crowds?

--What should the philosophy behind athlete selection be? Should South Africa send only those athletes who are expected to do well, or should it send everyone who qualifies?

--What can be done about sports in which Olympic qualifying is already under way, such as soccer, boxing and ice hockey? Can South Africa be placed into those tournaments late, or will it have to forgo competition in some sports?

All of this presumes that international sports federations will fall in line and readmit South African federations. Tuesday’s IOC decision affords South Africa the right to participate in the Games for the first time since 1960 (the country was formally expelled by the IOC in 1970), but the country must still gain membership in each sport’s federation to compete internationally.

These questions are especially pressing in track and field, where it appears likely that South Africa will field a team in time for the World Championships late next month in Tokyo. Track and field is South Africa’s most advanced Olympic sport, the only one in which the country will, quite literally, hit the ground running.

“This is our strongest sport . . . we will be a force,” said Joe Stutzen, president of the South African Amateur Athletic Union, the national governing body for the sport. “In 1989, we ranked our athletes against the best in the sport, on a point system. South Africa came out 11th of 195 countries.”

While South Africa does not have the balance in all events that most countries have developed--women’s field events in particular are a void--the country is a powerhouse in the distance races. These, too, are events in which South Africa’s black athletes are dominant. In fact, Stutzen predicts that the South African national team in Tokyo would be more than half black.

In the marathon, South Africa has six men who have met the qualifying standard for Tokyo; the United States has two. David Tsebe is the country’s best marathoner with a time of 2 hours 9 minutes 50 seconds, one of the fastest times in the world. Such is the country’s depth that in 1989, the top five half-marathoners in the world were South African.

Among the women are two world leaders, Myrtle Bothma in the 400-meter hurdles (53.65 seconds) and Elana Meyer in the 3,000 meters (8:32.00). Zola Budd Pieterse has qualified in both the 1,500 and 3,000 and is close to running the fastest times of her career.

Altogether, 39 South African athletes have qualified for Tokyo, but track officials are unsure how many will make the trip, provided the International Amateur Athletic Federation readmits South Africa, as it is expected to do.

South Africa has a rich, if abbreviated, Olympic history. It won 52 Olympic medals from 1904 to 1960, its last Olympic appearance. Boxing, tennis and track and field have been the best Olympic sports for South Africa, which has an obvious weakness in the sports of the Winter Games.

Boxing was popularized by the Scottish and English immigrants who landed in South Africa after gold was discovered in 1886. South Africa has won 19 Olympic medals in the sport, but its tradition of amateur boxing has faltered.

“While we were in the top five nations in boxing when we left the international arena, we might be well down the row now,” said Lappe Laubscher, an official with the South African Olympic Committee.

“It’s a lack of international competition. I’m very pessimistic about our chances. We haven’t seen the best in the world in 30 years. The sport has advanced.”

Another problem is that the Olympic qualifying tournament for African countries has already begun. South African officials are unsure what that means for their boxers’ participation. This is also the case with soccer, in which South Africa excels. It is likely that the country, rather than negotiating to enter the tournaments now, would not field teams in those sports for 1992.

Tennis, an Olympic sport in 1896-1924, is again a full medal sport. While there are eligible South Africans playing on the professional tour, Olympic officials have yet to receive commitments from them to play in the Olympics.

South Africa has not been expelled from the International Gymnastics Federation, but for 30 years has not been invited to compete anywhere in the world. It is expected that the South African federation will soon be receiving invitations, possibly in time to compete in the World Gymnastics Championships at Indianapolis in September.

Winter sports are further behind. According to Kevin Reynolds, President of the South African Ice Skating Assn., there are only eight ice rinks in the country.

Reynolds said the South African team in the Albertville Olympics is expected to consist of some figure skaters, a few speed skaters and little beyond that. All of those athletes, Reynolds said, will be white.

Perhaps the most difficult re-entry process is facing the athletes, who have lived, trained and performed in a vacuum for more than 30 years.

Peter Williams, who in 1988 swam a world-record time for the 50-meter freestyle (the record was not recognized because Williams is South African), said he learned much while competing for four years at the University of Nebraska.

Williams, who has returned to South Africa, said he discovered that being an athlete who grew up in South Africa made him different from others: His dreams did not, or could not, include the Olympic Games.

“After the 1988 Olympics, all my American friends approached me and said: ‘Gee, you must be so disappointed that you didn’t get to go to the Olympics. You must be so sad that your record was not ratified.’

“My response to them was that it didn’t matter. Here, you grow up without the possibility of the Olympics. You can’t carry on entertaining this notion that you are going to the Olympics.

“It’s not going to happen, and you will get yourself frustrated. If I had those thoughts and dreams inside my head, I would have been crushed as a sportsman.”

Today, Williams is allowed to dream.