Muriel Brand athletes head to nationals

Ten athletes from Muriel Brand School are heading to Gqeberha today (Friday) for the South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) Toyota National Championships.

Nine of the athletes are competing in the athletics championships, while one is competing in powerlifting, and all together they are competing in around 30 items.

The actual competition will be taking place between March 30 and April 1, but the team leaves this morning, and will return on April 2.

The championships will be held at the sports grounds of the Nelson Mandela University. Powerlifting will take place at the Cape Recife School.

Athletes are chosen every year from inter-house and inter-schools athletics, where athletes consistently placing on the podium are selected and classified by Ilze Richter.

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Then, they compete in the Gauteng tryouts, where they have to achieve at least two qualifying standards. To compete in nationals they need podium finishes in several items.

The nationals tour is completely self-funded, as the department and school don’t allocate funds for it, meaning the school relies on fundraising and sponsors to be able to send their athletes to nationals.

This year, all the athletes are covered, but sports manager for the school, Lauren Fremouw, is already concerned for next year’s event, which is taking place in Cape Town. She encourages organisations and individuals to start donating now, and mentioned that they provide a tax form for donors to file during tax returns.

From Gauteng, which Lauren is also team manager for, 120 athletes will be competing at nationals this year, excluding sports like swimming, soccer, power-lifting, blind judo and others.

A highlight of the tour each year is that the school principal, Dr Japie de Jager, goes along to cook for the team and chaperones for the duration of the tour.

The athletes also work extremely hard, practicing during the sports period and during break every day, and the school hosts disabled children from all over Ekurhuleni, and from different circumstances.

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Athletes competing are:
• Simphiwe Dlamini: discus, shotput and javelin.

• Donique van den Berg: 100m, 200m, long jump and shotput.

• Hlelo Modise: 100m and shotput.

• Kaylyn Payne: discus, shotput and javelin.

• Damian Vuyk: discus, shotput, javelin and 100m.

• Duncan Theunissen: powerlifting.

• Matume Malatsi: discus, shotput and javelin.

• Thabo Maje: 100m, 200m, and long jump.

• Teagon Coimbra: 100m, discus, shotput and javelin.

• Zander Green: 100m, long jump, discus and shotput.

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