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Overwhelmed, says Louzanne about her Paralympic medal

30 August 2021 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Roger Sedres (Gallo Images)

Lozanne Coetzee_Gallo read more — Louzanne Coetzee and her guide Estean Badenhorst won the silver medal in the 1 500 m in a new African time at the Paralympics in Tokyo on Monday.

It’s been eight years of waiting, but Louzanne Coetzee will finally hang a medal around her neck, and this on the biggest sporting stage in the world.

Coetzee won the silver medal in the 1 500 m women’s T11 final at the Paralympics in Tokyo on Monday (30 August 2021) morning. In the process, she and her guide, Estean Badenhorst, set a new African record (4:40.96).

They are both former University of the Free State (UFS) students, and Coetzee is a resident on the Bloemfontein Campus.

“I have been competing for eight years and this is my first medal. I’m just overwhelmed. I couldn’t have asked for a better race, a better guide, and better preparation. I’m just very thankful for how everything went down,” Coetzee said.

The race took place at 32 degrees with a humidity percentage of 70 plus. Coetzee’s time was only 2.04 seconds off the previous world record.

She has had a stunning Games so far. In Sunday’s heat, she improved her personal best from 4:51.65 to 4:49.24 and ran another eight seconds quicker on Monday.

It was also a personal triumph for Coetzee, who experienced the disappointment of being disqualified five years ago at the Rio Games, after a ruling that her guide had stepped in front of her.

Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, saluted Coetzee. “We are tremendously proud of what she has achieved throughout her athletics career. She has represented the country numerous times at international sport events and winning a silver medal and setting a new African record is the culmination of hard work and exceptional endurance.”

“The entire university community was rooting for her; she has done us and her country extremely proud,” Prof Petersen said.

Coetzee still has the T12 marathon on Sunday on her schedule.

News Archive

JN Boshoff Memorial Lecture: Dr Charles Nwaila

2005-09-13

Dr Charles Nwaila, Director-General of the Free State Provincial Government and Vice-Chairperson of the University of the Free State's (UFS) Council, recently discussed the repositioning of the Free State Provincial Government to respond to the 21st century demands during the JN Boshoff Memorial Lecture at the UFS.

From left: Dr Nwaila; Prof Tienie Crous, Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences; Prof Frederick Fourie, Rector and Vice-Chancellor and Dr Moses Sindane, Departmental Chairperson: Department of Public Management at the UFS.

A summary of the lecture.

Free State government to focus on training of public servants

The Free State provincial government in collaboration with higher education institutions in the province is to establish the Free State Association of Public Administration to get public servants to work effectively towards the growth and development of the province.
This was announced by the Director-General of the Free State provincial government, Dr Charles Nwaila, during a lecture he delivered at the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein this evening (Thursday 8 September 2005).

Delivering the annual JN Boshoff Memorial Lecture at the UFS, Dr Nwaila called on higher education institutions to play a critical and leading role in the re-engineering of the existing Provincial Training and Development Institute housed at the Vista campus of the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein.

Dr Nwaila was formerly the Superintendent-General (head) of the Free State Department of Education and currently serves as the Deputy Chairperson of the Council of the University of the Free State.
He said the proposed Free State Association of Public Administration is a joint initiative with the National Academy of Public Administration based in Washington DC.

“We take this opportunity to invite the University of the Free State and other knowledge based institutions to join the Provincial Government in fostering a collaborative network to help us develop our public servants,” Dr Nwaila said.
He said there were accelerating demands and a lot of pressure on limited resources, with Free Staters expecting more from their government than ever before.

“Civil servants in a developmental state are servants of the people, champions of the poor and the downtrodden and not self-serving individuals that seek only advancement on the career ladder,” Dr Nwaila said.
According to Dr Nwaila, the Free State Growth and Development Strategy has identified 11 areas that need to be addressed by the year 2014, including:

• To reduce unemployment from 38% to 20%
• To improve the functional literacy rate from 69,2% to 85%
• To stabilize the prevalence rate of HIV and AIDS and reverse the spread of the disease
• To provide a free basic service to all households
• To provide adequate infrastructure for economic growth and development

Dr Nwaila said that the Free State government will continue to follow a people-centred approach towards these development objectives with a keen sense of unity and unwavering determination to create the best of times for the Free State and all its people.

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