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04 April 2018 Photo SASCOC
Large Kovsie contingent at Commonwealth Games
Elmé de Villiers (badminton) is one of several former or current Kovsies who will be in action at the Commonwealth Games between 5 and 15 April.
The University of the Free State (UFS) will be well represented at the Commonwealth Games with 11 current or former Kovsies participating in Australia.

The Games take place from 5 to 15 April on the Gold Coast. For many of the sporting codes, this is the second biggest sporting stage after the Olympic Games.

The eight athletes are Ts’epang Sello, Juanelie Meijer and Karla Pretorius (current students) and former Kovsies Juanré Jenkinson, Elmé de Villiers, Nicole Walraven, Maryka Holtzhausen and Philip Snyman. 

In addition, three members of the management team, Neil Powell, Kate Roberts and Jan Wahl, all previously studied at the UFS. 

Holtzhausen and Powell at their third Games 
Sello will be competing in the 800m in the colours of Lesotho, her country of birth. 

Pretorius is the vice-captain of the netball team and Holtzhausen was the former captain before her serious injury in 2016. Pretorius is doing a postgraduate in Dietetics and Holtzhausen is a contract worker at Kovsiesport. She will be competing at her third Games. 
De Villiers is a member of the South African badminton team and Walraven is with the Protea hockey team. Snyman will captain the rugby team.

Meijer (long jump) and Jenkinson (shot put) will battle in the para-athletic programme.

Powell will coach the Blitzbokke who are the defending champions from 2014. It will be his second Games in charge. He also won the bronze medal as a player in 2010. 

Roberts is the manager of the triathlon team and a participant in 2006. Wahl will act as the manager of the para-athletics team.

News Archive

Kovsie overturns 60-year tradition at karate championships
2010-05-06

Bruno Schalbach.
Photo: Supplied
Bruno Schwalbach, a first-year accounting student at the University of the Free State (UFS) returned home with a gold medal after his victory at the men’s open karate division at the South African JKA Championships that were recently held in Johannesburg.

According to Dr Pieter le Roux, Main Coach at the Kovsie Karate Club and also attached to the UFS’s Department of Soil- and Crop- and Climate Sciences, this is a truly remarkable achievement. Bruno is the first competitor from outside Johannesburg, in the past sixty years, who took this title home. What makes this achievement even more special is that Bruno has already won gold in his first year after leaving school.

Bruno, a third dan in karate, who has a string of international victories under his belt, as well as full Protea colours in Karate, is also an instructor at the Kovsie Karate Club.

Since 1964 the Kovsie Karate Club has produced 28 Proteas. This was also one of the most successful clubs that participated in the championships, because it was members of this club that walked off the two most important trophies at these championships.

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