Steenkamp achieves gold at nationals
Suné Steenkamp wins gold at South African Kickboxing Championship.
IT was no mean feat for Suné Steenkamp to wrap up her South African kickboxing championship which was held recently, with a gold medal.
Competing in the 70kg women’s division her dream came true after many years of training to emerge as the best in her category.
She has taken up the code of kickboxing some three years ago and is a brown belt working towards her black belt. In the past two years she competed in about 60 fights and always returned home with a medal.
“You know, it’s not easy to train for a fight. It’s hours of training and hard work that goes into preparation, eating healthy when all your friends are enjoying themselves,” said Steenkamp.
“It’s getting up early and going to the gym, then you go to work and after work I go to my evening training sessions, and when you wake up you do it over and over again. Body conditioning is another important factor in this sport where you get punched in the stomach with bear fists over and over again until your muscles can absorb the shock and you don’t feel the shot anymore.”
She trains with her teammate, Danica Bezuidenhout, for more than a year and has been working through the blood, sweat and pain to achieve greater heights. This year she had only one thing in mind and that is to bring back the gold medal, as at her first SA championship she won the bronze medal, then in her second the silver medal. In 2018 she achieved gold.
Bezuidenhout received the silver medal in the women’s u-65kg at the nationals.
Steenkamp and Bezuidenhout were selected for the South African team to represent the country in Atlanta in June for the international championship.
“I am grateful for my amazing coach Sarah O’Donnel for teaching me to become a great fighter and for Danica (Bezuidenhout) for all her support and determination. She has a lot of talent and she is a strong fighter. I hope that she will take the gold next year in her weight division,” Suné said.
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