After all, for most people, it simply doesn’t get much better than representing your nation on the Olympic stage.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder heads are being scratched amid strong voices of dissent in South Africa after the country's National Olympic Committee refused to send their men’s and women’s hockey teams, as well as the women’s rugby sevens side, to Rio 2016 due to the fact that they each failed to qualify through the highest-level route available to them.

All three booked their ticket to Rio de Janeiro, which will be the first South American city in history to stage the Games, by winning their respective African Championships. Usually, that is enough.

But not for South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), who are maintaining their harsh stance on a matter which has caused widespread debate in Africa and beyond.

The line being touted by SASCOC chief executive Tubby Reddy, who holds the same position within the Durban 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, is one of arrogance. He feels the organisation's position is "in line with their policy of producing world-class athletes who will compete at the highest level".

Am I missing something here? For many, there is no higher echelon of sport than the Olympic Games, and by depriving their hockey and women’s sevens teams of a spot at next year’s Games in Rio, they are surely causing much more harm than good.

Of course, Reddy and the SASCOC in general wanted to see their athletes qualify in style, rather than meandering through continental events at which they were always expected to win, but by being so stubborn and obdurate, they are limiting the future development of their athletes and grinding Olympic dreams abruptly to a halt.

Often athletes at the Games perform way beyond expectations as they feast on the energy, fervour and atmosphere around the event itself – a feeling that many South Africa competitors will not get to experience during the summer of 2016.

And what a shame that is. The qualification process is complex and difficult enough for the athletes and to then strip them of their places, which seems overly strict and ultimately detrimental, will do their future career prospects no favours whatsoever.

SASCOC argue that these Continental Championships were simply too easy for their teams to win given their status as a major regional sporting power, and in terms of hockey, they may actually be right. Their men’s team, for example, had claimed six straight African Championships titles before the 2015 competition and their stroll to this year’s crown included a 30-0 mauling of Botswana and an 11-0 thrashing of Namibia.

South Africa’s women were also in ruthless form, dispatching Nigeria 15-0 before hammering Tanzania 27-0. But, as the old sporting saying goes, you can only beat what is put out in front of you.

In the end, both of South Africa’s hockey outfits clinched their respective titles and with it a spot at the Olympics was in the bag. Or not.

Since their victories, a battle has ensued between the South African Hockey Association (SAHA) and SASCOC, while the International Hockey Federation (FIH) also appealed, unsuccessfully, to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on behalf of SAHA.

Their attempt at making SASCOC see sense was turned down on the grounds that, under the terms of the Olympic Charter, all parties must respect the integrity and authority of their National Olympic Committee.

This to me is also difficult to fathom. Surely an integral and core value of the Olympic Games is not just who wins gold, silver and bronze but also participation; it is an event where taking part really does count and SASCOC are, therefore, blatantly denying their athletes the chance to do just that.

Their decision sparked anger among SAHA, who put out a strongly-worded statement after SASCOC said they would not allow them to participate because neither their men’s nor women’s teams had qualified through the FIH Hockey World League series of events.

“We note the growing impatience and frustration among the hockey community around why the qualification criteria discussion took place so late and note that some of this timing was out of our hands,” the statement read.

“We further acknowledge that up until the conclusion of the African Championships there was no qualification at all to speak of, as SA had not as yet met any elements of the FIH/IOC qualification criteria.

“The decision taken by SASCOC is crippling and will have long lasting negative ramifications for the sport of hockey, the decision taken is by no measure in the interest of the sport.”

Having taken such a drastic step in the wrong direction with their hockey teams, SASCOC then followed suit with their women’s rugby sevens team earlier this week - a decision which was described as “extremely disappointing” by Oregan Hoskins, President of the South African Rugby Union, who also said participating at Rio 2016 “would have been inspirational for many young female athletes”.

This development prompted another backlash. After I tweeted the link to insidethegames story about it, available here, I received several scathing responses, labelling SASCOC as “corrupt” among other things, while another South African wrote: “Then we blame our athletes for representing other nations, our sports administrators are a joke!!”

Not particularly promising for SASCOC, who may yet see support for their competitors at next year’s Olympics wane because of the recent debacles concerning their hockey and rugby sides and they could yet compound the anger if they take the same step with men's football team, who earned a Rio 2016 berth by finishing third in the African qualifier.

While neither of the three teams were likely to add to the South African medal tally at Rio 2016 - the men’s hockey side are ranked 15th in the world, the women are 11th while their women's rugby outfit finished 12th out of 13 in last season’s Women’s Rugby Sevens Series - it is the principle of SASCOC’s stance that has rankled with the country's 53-odd million residents.

One nation’s loss is another country’s gain in both circumstances, however, as New Zealand will fill the men’s Olympic hockey vacancy while the women’s place will be given to Spain.

In rugby, Kenya’s women are the beneficiaries of SASCOC’s decision, which got me thinking, bizarrely, about Denmark shocking the entire footballing stratosphere by winning the European Championships in 1992.

After they failed to reach the tournament through the qualification process, the Danish team were informed just over a week before the competition began that they would have to step in to replace Yugoslavia, who were not allowed to participate due to the civil war that was ravaging the country at the time.

Having qualified purely by default, few gave the Danes any hope of getting out of their group, let alone going on to win the tournament. 

But that's exactly what they did, beating defending world champions Germany 2-0 to lift the trophy against all the odds.

"We didn't have the best players, but we had the best team," Kim Vilfort, the midfielder who scored in the final, told BBC Sport back in 2012.

If only SASCOC saw it that way.