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28 February 2019 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Image SA
Wayde van Niekerk
Former UFS student Wayde van Niekerk, who still runs for the Kovsie Athletics Club, made his comeback after a long injury layoff.
Exactly 16 months and 16 days after seriously injuring his right knee, Wayde van Niekerk, the world and Olympic champion and record-holder in the 400 m, made a successful comeback to the track over the weekend.

His participation in the Free State Championship on Saturday (23 February 2019) was the former Kovsie sprinter’s first competitive race, which ended in a victory for the 26-year-old.

Van Niekerk won the 400 m in a time of 47,28 seconds. The former Marketing student still participates for the University of the Free State (UFS) Athletics Club.

According to his coach, Ans Botha, there is no immediate plans for a next race; this race only formed part of his training. They will be working towards the World Championships in September 2019, where he took gold in the 400 m at the previous two champs in 2017 and 2015. 

The international sprint sensation picked up medial and lateral tears of the meniscus, as well as a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) while participating in a celebrity touch-rugby match back in October 2017.

He underwent surgery in the United States, followed by six months of rehabilitation in Doha under the watchful eye of Dr Louis Holtzhausen, well-known sports medicine physician. Holtzhausen was previously the head of the University of the Free State’s Department of Sports and Exercise Medicine.

In second place in the 400 m on Saturday was Cornel Fredericks, a hurdles specialist. Fredericks, gold medallist in the 400 m hurdles at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, is now also training under Botha.

News Archive

British piano duo perform at Odeion
2016-10-19

Description: British piano duo Tags: British piano duo

David Nettle and Richard Markham, better known
as Nettle and Markham, will be performing in the
Odeion on 20 October 2016.
Photo: Supplied

The Odeion School of Music (OSM) at the University of the Free State (UFS) will be hosting one of the world’s foremost piano duos. Nettle and Markham perform in the main concert halls of Europe and with major British orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the RPO, the CBSO, and the ECO as well as other international orchestras. They also participate in major international festivals such as the Bath, Harrogate, Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, and BBC Proms.

The British duo have been delighting audiences throughout the musical world for nearly forty years and will perform at the Odeion on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus on 20 October 2016. David Nettle and Richard Markham are considered one of the most entertaining and musically satisfying partnerships performing today.

"We have not heard here until now a piano duo of such exceptional quality. The understanding of the music by both partners is so good that you cannot distinguish by hearing which of them picks up the musical theme. At the same time it is playing full of colour and spontaneous musicality, stirring and ravishing," Vecemi Praha said.

Nettle and Markham's varied recital and concerto repertoire encompasses not only standard works, but also their own distinctive transcriptions. Their highly praised recordings reflect the range of styles they are known to assimilate effortlessly, from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring to Sir Malcolm Arnold’s Concertos for two pianos.

In addition to their regular concert schedule, recent seasons have seen them devoting large amounts of time to preparing new recordings - the complete four-hand works of Schumann and Saint-Saëns being the first in a series of projects designed to keep them busy from now until their 40th anniversary seasons in 2017 and 2018.

Event: Nettle and Markham – two pianos
Date: 20 October 2016
Time: 19:30
Place: Odeion (Bloemfontein Campus)
Cost: R130 (adults), R90 (pensioners), R70 (UFS staff members), R50 (students and learners), R50 (group booking of 10+). Tickets available at Computicket.

For more information contact Ninette Pretorius at +27 51 401 2504.

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