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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

Postgraduate Film and Visual Media Programme at UFS from 2015

2014-12-04

There is great excitement at the University of the Free State (UFS) about the approval of a new honours and master’s programme in Film and Visual Media to be offered at the Faculty of the Humanities as from January 2015.

Prof Suzanne Human, Head of the Department of Art History and Visual Culture Studies at Kovsies and Director of the new programme, says this will be an interdisciplinary Film and Visual Media programme. There will consequently be a strong theoretical-philosophical basis in the training, as well as the practical experiences of students. The UFS will be the only university in South Africa where this much emphasis is placed on the historical and theoretical aspects of film-making.

“The world of images is, in our day and age where we are overwhelmed by images on a daily basis, a central study field relevant across various disciplines and even links the natural and human sciences,” says Prof Human.

“Film, which replaced books in the lives of young people in many ways, is an exciting field of which most people have some knowledge and involves a broad field of information with wide relevance.”

The programme will be presented with the cooperation of international scholars and experienced experts from the local industry. Chris Vorster – better known as Ryno from 7de Laan – with more than 20 years of experience in writing, directing and performance for theatre and TV, was appointed as lecturer in Film-making Theory and Practice in the newly-built film studio as from 2 January 2015.

This new postgraduate programme is developed in cooperation with several UFS departments:
• Prof Suzanne Human and Johanet Kriel (History of Art and Visual Culture Studies);
• Prof Nico Luwes, Dr Pieter Venter and Debeer Cloete (Drama and Theatre Arts);
• Prof Helene Strauss (English);
• Dr Anthea van Jaarsveld and Dr Cilliers van den Berg (Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French).

Specific admission requirements apply. For example, students should have a related BA degree with a minimum achievement level of 65%. Admissions are limited and subject to selection, therefore students that are interested should apply as soon as possible.

Admission requirements

For more information, please send an email to filmandvisualmedia@ufs.ac.za.

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