UJ student heads to Cape Town for another achievement

After some frustrating experiences, 2019 is turning out to be a defining year for University of Johannesburg (UJ) basketball player Lance Chikore.

On the court, glory came as his UJ team won this year’s University Sport South Africa (USSA) tournament. In addition to this, Chikore has been invited to deliver a paper at an international seminar in Cape Town in September. The structural engineering master’s student shared his pleasure over his achievements this year. “Right now I am so happy. It is a dream come true and the feeling is just great.”

Chikore completed his honours in civil engineering last year and is now in the first year of a master’s structural engineering course. This has led to an invitation to present a paper at the seventh International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation at the University of Cape Town.

He gave a brief overview of what his paper will be addressing, “The main aim for my project is to introduce the use of a special type of glue called epoxy in large-scale construction of buildings which are made of steel. This is to be done so that, in the near future, the construction industry will replace the common jointing materials like welding, bolting and riveting with this glue.”

Chikore added that he is honoured and very excited about the opportunity he has been given.

His attention has been firmly focused on achieving success with his basketball colleagues. The 24-year-old, who grew up in Zimbabwe but now lives in Auckland Park said, “It has been a heartbreaking journey for me as I went through four consecutive losses in the USSA semi-finals. It was painful and like a curse on the Orange Army. This year, however, all that pain was swept away after a clean sweep during the tournament and being crowned the national champions.”

Chikore hopes to continue his run of success both on and off the court and make 2019 a truly great year for himself.