Local sportsman awarded
Former athletics world record holder awarded for his leadership in sport.
Former world athletics record holder Gert Portgieter (79) was recently honoured with a humanitarian award for his outstanding leadership in sport by the Sport for Social Change Network (SCCN).
Potgieter is the founder of Altus Sport which focuses on township sport in the Tshwane region – Mamelodi, Soshanguve and Attridgeville.
“I am very grateful for the award and that finally someone has recognised my contribution to township sport,” said Portgieter.
“We have 41 unemployed youths running our programmes sustainably in Tshwane.”
Potgieter has lectured in sport and the Olympics internationally and has published several articles on sport education and training programmes, Olympism and total fitness.
He is also the founder the first multiracial National School Sport Federation and National Olympic Academy of South Africa.
Potgieter organised the youth programme for the celebration that followed the inauguration of Nelson Mandela, as president of South Africa.
At the award ceremony, Portgieter praised the excellent work by NGOs to use sport as a tool to develop the youth and appealed to the government and sports federations to become more involved in the development of communities.
Potgieter was made the ambassador of the SCCN.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
- We have exciting news! We’re offering a free alert to help you always be in the loop. Send an email with the word ‘Subscribe’ to breakingnews@rekord.co.za to receive your free daily breaking news update.
