Nolwazi Mashaba made history this past weekend when she became one of the country’s only combination jumpers in her age group to ever bag two golds at the CAA African u/18 Youth and u/20 Juniors.

“She is the only athlete we are aware of who took double gold in the field events, and, as far as our research shows, it must have been a very long time ago in SA that any woman won both of the horizontal jumps at national level.
“In fact we cannot trace who or when any other female athlete achieved this specific double at the same event,” said her coach, Johann Kruger.
This 17-year-old learner of Lowveld High School has managed to break boundaries in the long jump and triple jump, not only in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast where the championships were held, but also recently, during ASA Youth And Junior Championships in Paarl. According to her coach, it is an almost unheard of accomplishment for the same athlete to win both the long and the triple jump. Such an athlete can then be called a combination jumper.
She was one of three locals who left the Lowveld on Thursday to represent SA in Abidjan, and became the first South African to bag gold.
Hoërskool Nelspruit’s Douw Kruger won silver and a bronze medal at the event, with his best being a distance of 19,05 metres in shot-put.
His second medal was in discus. Rob Ferreira’s Nhlanhla Maseko was unable to attend the championships as he could not obtain a visa ahead of departure. Vuyo Ndlovu won bronze in the 100 metres, but due to the 4×100 metres being cancelled, he could not reach his full potential.

Despite falling way short of her personal best of 12,96 metres, Nolwazi still managed to take the spoils with a distance of 12,65 metres. Much to her and her coach’s chagrin, her mighty leap of 13,20 which would have been her new personal best and placed her comfortably in the lead, did not count due to an alleged foul. She, however, still took the win and despite challenging the decision, and had to accept
12,65 metres as her winning distance.

On Saturday she did what no other Lowvelder could ever achieve – win a second gold medal in horizontal jumps at this event. Athletes were faced with strong headwinds, but despite the elements working against her, she still managed to bag gold with a distance of 5,87 metres – again short of her personal best of 6,12 metres which she jumped in Potchefstroom last year.

“Although, as her coach I am very proud of her win, I know that this is not her best,” he said, and added that he will be by her side when she leaves for Germiston on Wednesday to take part in the SA Senior Championships.

“As with the Ivory Coast, we will use the little time at our disposal to get as much practise in as we can,” he said.