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22 December 2022 | Story Jóhann Thormählen | Photo Anja Aucamp
Peter Makgato
Peter Makgato showed true perseverance in coming back after being out of action for more than a year with an Achilles tendon injury. The Kovsie long jumper won a bronze medal at the South African Championships in 2022.

If it wasn’t for Peter Makgato’s UFS support system, he would have been lost to South African athletics. The road of recovery after a serious injury can be lonesome, but he was never alone.

The promising long jumper had to learn to walk again after the injury to his Achilles tendon and could only compete more than a year after his dreams were shattered in November 2020.

Only months after returning to jumping in 2022, he was winning medals again.

Keeping me focused

“Without KovsieSport, I believe I would have hung up my spikes after that injury,” says Makgato. “Throughout the entire journey back, I had support from my coach (Emmarie Prinsloo; Head of KovsieSport Jumping Academy) and Oom DB (Prinsloo; Head of Athletics at KovsieSport).”

He also praises “the expert medical help” from Kovsie Health and says he went through nothing alone. “My progress was monitored by a team that knew me before the injury and this meant they were able to keep me focused on the progress and not on the injury.”

Although he had injuries before, Makgato says the emotional challenges were much bigger. “What really helped me were a few words from Wayde van Niekerk days after my operation when I went back to the track on crutches. He told me not to lose my head.

“That is the best advice you can give someone in my position. Physically I was broken, I had to make sure that mentally I fought to stay above the waters.”

Bigger goals in mind

He was only able to walk again from May 2021, started rehab in August 2021, and was running properly by December 2021.

He was only able to jump competitively again in March 2022, and a month later claimed a bronze medal at the South African Championships (7,47 m). This was followed by a USSA bronze in May 2022 (7,46 m).

“I had bigger goals in mind. Now that I look back, I realise that for a person who could not even run properly five months before and who had little preparation time, I was doing pretty good.”

And now the Master of Laws student has his sights on bigger things again: The World Athletics Championships next year and the Olympic Games in 2024.

News Archive

Tim Noakes delivers lecture at UFS symposium
2014-08-04

 

Prof Tim Noakes
Photo: Renè-Jean van der Berg

The Metabolic Research Unit at the University of the Free State (UFS) held a symposium on diabetes, with Prof Tim Noakes as one of the guest speakers.

Prof Noakes, a professor in Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town, became known mainly for his research and findings on nutrition and health and is also the person behind the infamous ‘Noakes diet’.

The ‘Noakes diet’ – or the Paleo diet – focuses on avoiding carbohydrates in favour of including high fat and oil content for a healthy diet.

During his lecture, Prof Noakes explained how this diet can actually help control certain stadia of diabetes and shared several success stories with the symposium.

Prof Noakes’ reasoning concerning the ‘traditional’ nutritional requirements known to everybody, is that it has never been studied before to determine its effectiveness.

According to this nutritional plan, often depicted as a food pyramid, carbohydrates should form the biggest part of a healthy diet and foods from the fats and oils group should be restricted.

Prof Noakes explained that the human body converts carbohydrates into glucose (sugar) to be able to digest it. It is this sugar that leads to weight and health problems in people, of which heart disease and diabetes are some of the most common. 
 

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