“Veni, Vidi, Vici” is an excellent way to describe the heroics of the various Tuks sports teams who competed in the recent USSA Tournaments.

Tuks indeed came, saw and conquered on land and in and on the water.

Tuks’s netball has beaten Kovsies 37-35 in the final. The men’s A-rowing team won the Boat Race for the 12th consecutive time, the women’s A-crew was victorious for a fifth time, while Tuks’s swimming team also won – they have been USSA champions since 2016. Helena Coetzee is the women’s squash champion.

Tuks women’s basketball team lost in the final.

* It won’t be wrong to say that Tuks’s Jenny van Dyk is a coach who has the “Midas touch”. She has somehow perfected the art of getting teams to be at their best when it matters.

Given that the Varsity Tournament did not quite play out as she might have hoped. But in all fairness, Tuks netball is in a building phase. The team lacked game time at the start of the Varsity Tournament. It led to Tuks losing three games. Still, they managed to finish third overall.

Afterwards, some criticized Van Dyk, saying that she lacked imagination and the teams she coached were playing predictable netball. She got to prove everyone wrong.

The core of the Tuks team went on to play the first leg of the Telkom National Netball League as the Jaguars. They won all their games. During last week’s USSA Tournament, Tuks was again unbeaten. It will be interesting to see what will happen during the second leg of the Telkom League.

* Tuks’s swimming team were dominant at the USSA Gala held at Tuks. They won the men and women’s competitions as well as overall. It might be the first time that one university managed to be victorious in every relay.

The double Olympic medallist and world record holder, Tatjana Schoenmaker, won all three the breaststroke events (50m, 100m and 200m). It led to her being the best female swimmer at the gala scoring 124 points.

Tuks’s Samantha Randle was the third-best scoring 97 points.

Andrew Ross was Tuks’s best male swimmer. He finished third on the individual points log (90). Ruan Ras was fourth (86 points), Louw Oberholzer fifth (80 points) and Dante Nortje 10th (67 points).

* Amazingly, the only thing that has kept on changing since 2009 during the USSA Boat Race in Port Alfred is the seating of Tuks men’s A-crews in the boat. The results remained the same. Tuks wins. Their winning streak of 12 consecutive victories is possibly one of the longest in any South African sporting code.

Tuks’s women were brilliant in the way they dominated the USSA women’s A-race. In the end, they managed to beat UCT by more than a minute. It is one of the most significant winning margins.

* Tuks’s women’s basketball team surprised many by qualifying for the USSA final. During the 2019 tournament, they were 14th. Tuks lost to UJ in the final on Sunday.

Kimathi Toboti is the coach who has revived women’s basketball at Tuks.

“The most important thing is to change the mindset of the players. It means they got a step back to understand why they failed in the past. It is also about commitment. Whether we practise or play, I expect 100%,” is how he explains his coaching philosophy.

It seems to work as Courtney Koen, Lauren Fredericks, Amber Sylvester, and Alika Meyerkort were selected for the women’s national team. Fredericks is also included in the All-Star Ladies Team.

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