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With Tyler Beling, the University of the Free State (UFS) has one of the brightest young talents in athletics circles. She demonstrated this by achieving the distinction of winning the national junior women’s titles in all three athletic disciplines (track and field, cross-country, and road running) in the same year. 

She added the last title (road running) on Saturday when she won Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) 10 km championship for junior women. Last month, she was crowned as the country’s fastest junior female runner at the ASA cross-country championships. Earlier in the year, she obtained a fourth spot at the CAA Southern Region cross-country championships in the U20 category, and a 23rd overall position in the open category at the CAA African cross-country championships.

Beling also had a brilliant year on the track in the 1 500 m and 5 000 m. She won the gold medal in the 1 500 m for U20 women at both the CAA Southern Region youth and junior championships, and the South African U18 and U20 championships. She followed this up with a first place in the 5 000 m at the CUCSA Games for Africa students. 

According to this first-year Quantity Surveying student, claiming the national junior cross-country title was the most special of all. “I didn’t have a good race last year. I was dehydrated and ran a very slow time. I wanted to make up for that.”
She says she doesn’t have a favourite among the three disciplines. “I enjoy all of them. My coach (Sarina Cronjé) feels that there isn’t a need right now to specialise in one of them.”

The athletics year is pretty much over now, but she will continue training to be ready for the trials in January when the national team for the world cross-country championships in March 2019 is selected.