EC primary school athletes do well at national champs
Three schoolboys, who represented the Eastern Cape at the 2024 national primary schools athletics in Limpopo, are proud of their performances.
Lonwabo Primary School pupil Likhona Pute, 11, said: “I ran the 100m and came second [in the heats]. In the semifinal, I finished fourth, which did not qualify me for the final.”
The young man said he learnt a lot from the journey and was determined to do it again next year.
“I took notes on how I was outpaced and I will be working on improving.
“I will start with my preparations and start training in September,” Pute said.
Nalu Xhinti, 12, from Lonwabo Primary School said of the 1,200m race: “It was hard knowing that you are not only representing yourself, family and your school but the entire province against other strong athletes. I finished in sixth place in the heats, and since we do not have semifinals, we went straight to finals, where I finished seventh out of 16 or 17 athletes.
“Next year we will go back to make the Eastern Cape proud. We will win the nationals next year. I am very happy with the progress made and now I will start training for the crosscountry. I am positive that I will win the nationals in the crosscountry because I am used to running this race,” Xhinti said.
The young athletes struggle with facilities and train on the road which puts them at a disadvantage against athletes who have proper infrastructure to train on.
Liyaka Peterson, 11, from Thembelihle Primary said: “I ran the 1,200m and finished eighth.
“I am happy that I got to represent my province and next year I will make sure that I go back.”
Fezile Qononda, the provincial team manager in charge of the 11-year-old boys running long distance said: “We had some shortfalls here and there but that was nothing we could not handle and we managed to fix these as managers from across the province. The province finished in seventh position. That means we need to improve a lot and that will happen by starting to train athletes from nine years old.”
Qononda said the province needs to improve the standard of training, management of the team and the qualifying standards with the assistance of the department of education and department of sport, recreation, arts & culture.