A South African athlete broke her own WORLD RECORD over the weekend, beating her original time by over 13 seconds!
Louzanne Coetzee is outgoing, loves challenges and lives life to the fullest each day. Coetzee was born in Bloemfontein in 1993. She attended school in Worcester, a small town in the Boland, where she matriculated in 2011 as one of the top students in the province.
The incredible South African may be blind, but that has never stopped her from achieving her goals and dreams.
Coetzee started her career as a paralympic athlete in 2012 during her first year at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. She was encouraged by her friends to start the sport.
Coetzee competed at the 2016 Summer Paralympics representing South Africa in the Women’s 1500 metres. In 2017, she broke the world record of 5000 metres for women in disabled athletics smashing the previous world record held by Lithuanian Sigita Markeviciene.
And now she’s done it again!
The amazing athlete, earned a few medals over the weekend in Berlin, Germany, where she competed in the World Para Athletics Grand Prix.
In the process Coetzee along with her guide, Xavier Adams, shattered the T11 (totally blind) World 5000m record by a whole 13,97 seconds!! Her new record now sits at 18m,00s,34!! She also ran an 800m African Record in the T11 category with her time being 2m25s.
A post was put out on social media by Lauren Filen asking South Africans to share her story:
“I find it extraordinarily sad that there is NOT A WORD about it anywhere on Sport 24, or any other National news channel.
Please share this post so that Louzanne can see how many South Africans (and people worldwide) are proud of her! Let’s try and get her achievement into the news, where it deserves to be.”
Keep sharing her story to inspire other South Africans!