As someone with a passion for sport, University of Johannesburg’s Taren Naidoo is relishing her opportunity to work with some of the top sportswomen in the country.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old sports scientist is part of the department at UJ and was last year appointed to work with the national women’s hockey team under her former mentor, Robin van Ginkel.<\/p>\n
Naidoo, who grew up in Dundee and Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal but now lives in Sandton, said it was the “ultimate accomplishment to get to work with a senior national team”.<\/p>\n
“Representing your country in any way is a privilege and I am humbled and excited all at once,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It is great to work alongside the brains of the industry – coaches and medical staff – and with the most talented athletes in our country.<\/p>\n
“I owe my parents, brother and sister so much for supporting me in all I do. My supervisor [Professor Andrew McKune] from the University of KZN, who is now based at the Australian Institute of Sport, also played a huge role in my journey to this point.”<\/p>\n
Naidoo said she was thrilled to renew a relationship with the former UJ women’s hockey coach.<\/p>\n
“Robin is truly an inspiration who I admire and respect. I worked with him at UJ sport, where he was head of the sports science department.<\/p>\n
“His high-performance strategies saw the department grow immensely and I learnt a great deal from him in this environment.”<\/p>\n
Initially eager to become a physiotherapist, Naidoo’s plans were stymied when she realised she needed physics as a major.<\/p>\n
“The faculty officers at the university suggested occupational therapy, speech and hearing, and sports science,” she said. “So I picked sports science.<\/p>\n
“I was not a talented sport person but at school and varsity I participated in everything – water polo, badminton, hockey, tennis, basketball, rhythmic gymnastics, netball. You name it, if I had time I was there and would get involved.”<\/p>\n
Having qualified from UKZN with honours in sports science and a masters in exercise physiology, Naidoo now works with the UJ basketball and women’s hockey teams.<\/p>\n
“As the sports scientist for those teams I manage and work with each athlete on an individual basis,” she said.<\/p>\n
“This involves planning the player’s strength and conditioning on the field and in the gym, as well as the skill sessions.<\/p>\n
“There are many other aspects as well which are vital for a fully functioning team and this all needs to be planned in tandem with the coach.”<\/p>\n
“As a sports scientist you get to work with new equipment and technology that the industry has. Every day is a different day at work and working with people is a passion of mine.<\/p>\n
“It’s so rewarding seeing the growth and being a part of the process that leads to a gold medal or personal best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As someone with a passion for sport, University of Johannesburg’s Taren Naidoo is relishing her opportunity to work with some of the top sportswomen in the country. The 31-year-old sports scientist is part of the department at UJ and was last year appointed to work with the national women’s hockey team under her former mentor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1768,3832,1968,1733],"class_list":["post-25467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-hockey","tag-taren-naidoo","tag-uj-hockey","tag-university-of-johannesburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}