Passion helps athlete recover
The sportswoman's next goal is to compete at the African Championships in Cape Town in November.
A passion for athletics saw Azel de Villiers from the Brakpan Athletics Club not only recover from a horrible injury but become a national champion.
In 2018, the master’s athlete ruptured her Achilles tendon, a difficult injury to recover from.
“We were preparing for a competition, and then I started sprinting with my spikes after running in my tekkies, and I felt it,” she said.
“It takes a long time to heal. That happened in September (2018), and I could only start running the next April and even after that, I could feel it.
“When you are cold, you feel little pain and are a bit crippled until you are warmed up. They say to recover fully takes seven years, but at least now I don’t feel it anymore.”
Her recovery was incredible because she recently brought home nine medals from the SA Master Athletics Championships in Cape Town. She earned two gold medals, six silver and one bronze.
She participated in the pentathlon and individual throws, the long jump, hurdles, the 100m sprint and the relay.
“It was great fun,” she said.
De Villiers’ achievements came through hard work and a passion for her sport.
“For SAs, I started training seriously last August,” she said.
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Looking back at her injury, some might have considered quitting the sport, but the Brakpan woman decided not to give up.
“I was a little worried (about coming back), and I think it did take a lot of my speed, and I’m still building a lot on my speed. I think I can go faster.
“I must still work on that. It was hard. I kept it strapped a lot. I would train one day, and it would hurt the next. It took a while to get to the point where I could at least train for three days in a row,” she said.
“It’s just my passion which kept me in the sport. I love athletics. The people at athletics. When you do masters’ athletics, you don’t really see the other people as competition, but we are just a bunch of friends celebrating and running together.”
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The next goal for De Villiers is to compete at the African Championships in Cape Town in November.
“That’s a big opportunity for people outside of South Africa to come and compete. For me, there’s no slowing down. I have to keep training,” she said.
While there are still a few months before that meeting, De Villiers is already excited.
“I’m making sure I get everything right and get more coaching,” she said.
“Before the national championships, we had the provincial championships, but now that there is more time to prepare, I can prepare better. Now that I have a few months, I can sharpen everything.”
