Top South African long jumper Lynique Prinsloo had to battle more than just the qualifying criteria to make her Olympic dream come true.<\/p>\n
Having suffered chronic back pain for three years, the road to her best form and, ultimately, selection for the Rio Olympics team, was a long and winding one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took me seven years to be where I\u2019m today. It doesn\u2019t just happen overnight,\u201d said the 25-year- old who grew up in Springs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne must never be discouraged. Every setback requires a comeback and one must make sure it\u2019s a good one.\u201d<\/p>\n
The University of Johannesburg education student, who has competed for the national team at world and continental level since 2008, said Rio would undoubtedly be the highlight of her career.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy lifetime goal and dream came true. I had to sacrifice so much to be selected for this team, but it made giving up all these things worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prinsloo, who divides her time between Joburg and Pretoria, said she believed she had a good chance of achieving the Olympic benchmark of 6.70m after teaming up with UJ coach Emmarie Fouche this year.<\/p>\n
She did so in dramatic fashion when she leapt to a season\u2019s best of 6.78m on her last attempt at the SA Student Champs in May. Her next goal was now to make the final where she said anything could happen.<\/p>\n
Prinsloo, who has a PB of 6.81m, admitted that being a student-athlete was not easy. Luckily for her, she said, the university supported both her academic and sporting ambitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in contact with your lecturers does help a lot, especially when I\u2019m overseas,\u201d said Prinsloo, who is majoring in physical education and psychology.<\/p>\n
Her faith has also stood her in good stead as she sets about meeting her challenges head-on.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod gave me this wonderful ability to jump and, when I do, I feel his presence.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Africa Today – South Africa News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Top South African long jumper Lynique Prinsloo had to battle more than just the qualifying criteria to make her Olympic dream come true. Having suffered chronic back pain for three years, the road to her best form and, ultimately, selection for the Rio Olympics team, was a long and winding one. \u201cIt took me seven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[1212,1213,1736,1735,1734,1724,1726,1725,30,1728,1407,307,1729,1730,1440,1210,1211,1738,1439,1651,319,1209,114,297,1727,1731,1732,1737,1733],"class_list":["post-3297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-coach-emmarie-fouche","tag-emmarie-fouche","tag-joburg","tag-long-jumper","tag-long-jumper-lynique-prinsloo","tag-lynique-prinsloo","tag-news","tag-olympic","tag-olympics","tag-pretoria","tag-rio-olympics","tag-rio-olympics-2016","tag-s-a-today","tag-sa","tag-sa-news","tag-sa-student-champs","tag-sa-today","tag-sat","tag-south-africa","tag-south-africa-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-south-african","tag-south-african-lynique-prinsloo","tag-springs","tag-springs-news","tag-uj","tag-university-of-johannesburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}