Potchefstroom Campus honours best sportsmen and women

Potchefstroom – Athletics dominated once again at the award ceremony for sportsmen and women of the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus.

The annual sports dinner was held in the city’s Banquet Hall. The guest speaker was the Rector of the Potchefstroom Campus, Prof Annette Combrink, who will be retiring at the end of the year.

Three of the four awards were for athletics. The senior sportsman of the year is Elroy Gelant, who won a bronze medal at the World Student Games in Serbia in the 5000 m event.

Sunette Viljoen is the sportswoman of the year – also in 2003 and 2004. This year, she improved the African women’s javelin record to 65,43 metres and won the gold medal at the World Student Games in Serbia.

Ulrich Damon is the Junior Sportsman of the Year. This year, he won gold medals for; SA Junior, USSA and Africa Junior. His distance of 78,58 is the second best attempt in the world this year.
Nadia Uys is Potchefstroom campus sport’s Junior Sportswoman of the Year. In the course of the year, this first-rate netball player represented the SA Zone 6 team, the SA u.20 team and the SA u.21 team (at two tournaments).

This year, the Potchefstroom Campus delivered 21 team members for USSA teams and thirteen students from Potchefstroom Campus represented junior national and national B teams.

Eight students from the Potchefstroom campus received national recognition: Loreen Irvine (hockey), Chrisna Bootha (netball), Sunette Viljoen (athletics), Linda van den Biggelaar (duathlon), Kobie Ross (karate), Leon Els (wheelchair tennis), Pierre Breitenbach (bowls) and SF Scheepers (bisley shooting).

Potchefstroom Campus sport makes an enormous contribution to sports in the North-West Province. More than 350 Potchefstroom Campus students represented the country in eight sports disciplines.

2009’s sportsmen and women with the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Theuns Eloff and the Campus Rector, Prof Annette Combrink, Elroy Gelant, Sunette Viljoen, Ulrich Damon and Nadia Uys