What the Indoor Afcon Hockey Tournament was like for Bonolo Moabi
The Wits hockey athlete has also seen some great individual success recently.
Bonolo Moabi recently represented the South African women’s indoor team at the African Hockey Federation’s Indoor Afcon Tournament.
Moabi is in her final year of studying towards a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations, Politics and Psychology. She has been playing hockey for Wits University for four years now, having also enjoyed great success throughout her career individually so far. The hockey star has been in and around the national team setup for two years but has regularly been picked to represent the Gauteng province since the age of 12.
Read more: How Morgan de Jager yields her power from the hockey field
She shared on her recent experience at the Afcon tournament and what has really kept her going so far in aiding a successful career and striking the balance in achieving what she sets out for herself.
“Playing in the Afcon tournament was such a good experience! My teammates are really good people and I care for them dearly. So everything felt rather smooth. We came there with a goal in mind, and everyone knew what we had to do, so it was amazing all round.”
It takes a lot to represent your country in sport and Moabi feels humility has carried her well in unlocking her dream so far. “I acknowledge the honour completely, but I feel like having humility is a very strong trait of mine, so it’s definitely something I don’t lead with; I just carry it.”
Playing against some of the best on the continent is no easy task but for her, it’s come with great lessons. She’s drawn plenty of lessons, but among those is that the smallest mistakes can cost you a goal – especially after playing against Namibia. There she learned you can’t be having lapses of concentration during the game. It’s 40 minutes of pure hard work.
Also read: A history of the Indoor Hockey World Cup
Being a student athlete, there are many difficulties along the way, but she manages striking the balance between her playing career and academics through communication. To her, communication is a big thing that is important to her. “Most of my teammates are either students or working, so we have moments where we all do work together.”
Despite having already achieved so much, the rising star still feels she’s got a lot more to achieve and improve. Moabi plans to play in the World Cup as well as help improve their world ranking, as they are currently sixth and she would like for the team to be in the top four.
It’s been a great career for Moabi so far and her advice for young upcoming student athletes is to work hard and look after yourself.
“Just keep working hard for it and make sure to take care of yourself during the journey; it’s tough to get there but nothing beats the feeling of wearing the green and gold and playing for your country.”
Follow us on our Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok pages. Join our WhatsApp group for any story ideas you may have.
Related article: Another call up for UJ hockey star
