Bronze for SA’s underwater hockey stars in Australia

Two years ago, Potchefstroom’s underwater hockey stars smiled brightly as the SA women’s u.19 team won gold at the World Championships.

This year, the South African women’s u.19 team had to settle for bronze at the 2017 Underwater Hockey World Championships in Hobart, Tasmania after succumbing to an agonising 1-0 defeat to Australia in the semi-finals.

The team, which included locals, Nicole Smit and Danél Wentzel (players) and Pamela Mackor and JD Aucamp (coaches) then played one of their best games of the highly competitive tournament with a clinical 3-0 victory over Colombia to take third place.

The tournament saw numerous countries compete against each other in a gruelling fixture list that saw the team playing 16 games in the span of nine days.

‘The girls did a brilliant job, considering they only had about five practice sessions before the team headed for the World Championships. In the end, the lack of recovery time and the intensity of the matches drained the ladies both mentally and emotionally’ said Aucamp.

Smit, a learner at Potchefstroom Girls High, was at her first World’s and enjoyed the atmosphere and the challenge of playing against different opposition with their own styles.

‘It was absolutely wonderful and I enjoyed every bit of the competition,’ she added.