Young sport star has big aspirations
Hoërskool Pietersburg (PHS) learner, Henk van Zyl, is an avid rugby player and wrestler.
POLOKWANE – The 18-year-old currently plays flank for the school’s first team and was recently chosen out of players from 38 schools to go to Portugal to play rugby along with the opportunity to train at the Sharks Rugby Academy after high school.
His dream is to play for a rugby union but his ultimate goal is to play for the Springboks.
After injuring his neck in a rugby game he was told that in order to strengthen his neck he must start training in wrestling, and for the past eight years he has been training with Jan Roets at the Ion Baciu Wrestling Academy.
“I will always be thankful for the doors wrestling opened for me. Not only did it help strengthen my neck it helped me improve my rugby skills.”
He became such a good wrestler that he was able to secure two gold medals at a national event, one in freestyle and another in Greco-Roman wrestling which earned him a spot in the South African Junior team that will go to Algeria later this year. He currently competes in the 120 kg class in wrestling.
Henk states that he loves wrestling because of its honesty and the discipline and loves rugby because it is a physical game and he loves the team spirit of the sport.
“My day begins by getting up early in the morning to go for a 2 km run that I must complete in under 10 minutes after which I get ready for school.
“After school I attend rugby practice and after that I do wrestling training. When I’m done with wrestling I go to the gym to train even further,” he explained.
Henk has rugby practice on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and wrestling training from every Monday to Thursday. He goes to the gym every night from Monday to Friday.
Henk firmly believes that the only way to achieve his goals is to train as hard as possible, eat right, live healthy and show discipline.
Henk has a couple of wise words for anyone who would like to start playing rugby or become a wrestler: “Train harder than the rest, live healthy and clean, dream big and remember once you’ve wrestled, everything else is a whole lot easier.”
