Springs athlete makes it big
Jaco Engelbrecht has been involved in shotput for 16 years. He has numerous awards and has competed in the World Championships for shotput in Russia.
Growing up and still living in Springs, Jaco says his father knew from a young age, Jaco would get into the sport.
“He says I used to throw bricks and stuff on my oupa’s farm, so when the teacher approached me at school my dad knew I can be good at shotput someday.”
Jaco was always very active and played rugby and cricket in primary school, but after a few years in high school, he dropped the other sports and started to focus purely on his shotput and discus talents.
From competing in his very first competition, Jaco knew he would do well in the sport.
“I think I got a second place at a small school meeting and after that I was pretty hard to beat. Considering that in my first year of shotput there wasn’t an u/10 age group like they have now, I had to compete against the u/11 boys and made it up to the Gauteng champs where I got 8th place against them,” Jaco says.
At the moment, Jaco represents the University of Johannesburg in shotput. He used to train from 4 to 6 hours a day and 5 or 6 days a week, but he recently started working, so now he gets one to two hours in on a good day.
Over the years he has won the Central Gauteng champs 10 times, earned his national colours where he placed fourth in the 2012 African champs and second at 2011 All-Africa games.
“This year I set a new USSA (SA students) record of 19.53 and also became one of only six men ever to break the 20m barrier in SA when I won the Varsity Cup in Pretoria with 20.31. After that I competed in Europe where it didn’t go as I expected, but I travelled to Russia where I managed to place fifth at the World Student games. I also recently receive second runner up at the Sportsman of the Year at UJ.”
Jaco has qualified for the world indoor championships in 2014 as well as preparing for the Commonwealth Games, African Champs and the Continental Cup in 2014.
“I believe that if I get just a little financial backing that I can get a medal at all of these championships,” he says.
His biggest dream is to compete in the Olympics, and that is what motivates him everyday.
“It has always been a dream of mine and I will keep going to achieve that.”
