South Africa Turns Down Tokyo Invitation

South Africa’s Amateur Athletics Assn. on Saturday voted against sending a team to the World Track and Field Championships in Tokyo next month.

The vote was 9-5. Only delegates of the South African Amateur Athletics Union favored participation, which would have marked South Africa’s debut in world competition after 21 years of banishment.

The Athletics Union is one of three major groups making up the newly formed and racially integrated Athletics Assn. The other two groups--the Amateur Athletics Congress and Amateur Athletics Board--opposed participation.

The president of the Congress, Henry Cloete, said he would take the matter up with his group again.

On Thursday, the president of the Amateur Athletics Board, Harry Hendricks, said apartheid was still alive in South African sport in facilities and coaching.

Controversy also surrounds the possibility of South Africa’s participation in the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.

Joe Ebrahim of the South African Council on Sport says until the black majority has the vote and a new constitution eliminating apartheid is approved, South Africa’s isolation should continue.