Madibaz judo exponent Lwazi Mapitiza achieved a major career highlight when he returned with a bronze medal from the African Judo Championships in Madagascar in December.<\/p>\n
The tournament, which took place in Antananarivo, saw the 30-year-old Nelson Mandela University sport management student competing in the under-100kg category.<\/p>\n
The sport categorises competitors according to their weight and Mapitiza was slotted into the 91-100kg division.<\/p>\n
He described his third place at the African champs, which he was attending for the fifth time, as the best achievement of his career.<\/p>\n
“My goal going into the competition was to bring back a medal, hopefully a gold medal, but I was still happy to return with the bronze,” said Mapitiza, who lives in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth.<\/p>\n
“It was a really special moment and there was a feeling of relief at the end, as well as pride in achieving what I did.<\/p>\n
“It was an improvement on the 2019 champs, where I came fifth overall, so I am definitely happy with the way things turned out.”<\/p>\n
His aim now is to keep working hard at his craft as his success in December has provided strong motivation.<\/p>\n
“I want to stay on top of my game and to do that I am hoping to attend as many major competitions as I can.<\/p>\n
“The way to keep improving is to enter the sorts of tournaments where I will meet opponents of a high calibre.”<\/p>\n
Mapitiza, who was educated at Ed-U-College, VP Grey Primary and Lawson Brown High, has his path mapped out for this year.<\/p>\n
“Firstly, I have set my sights on trying to win a gold medal at the Africa champs, which will be held in April,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I would also love to attend at least two international Grand Prix tournaments, which would help me to prepare for the World Student Games in China in August.”<\/p>\n
His achievement in Madagascar was made possible, he said, by the support he received from Madibaz Sport.<\/p>\n
“They sponsored the whole trip and there were a lot of challenging administrative conditions with which we had to comply.<\/p>\n
“But with the help of my manager, Bernard Petersen, and sport director Yoliswa Lumka we managed to make it as smooth as possible.<\/p>\n
“I would also like to thank my coach, Mthobeli Vena, for his contribution in so many ways, not least of all for handling all my sponsorship requests.<\/p>\n
“He also attended the African champs as an official.”<\/p>\n
Petersen said they were proud of the way Mapitiza had put Madibaz on the sporting map.<\/p>\n
“Lwazi is truly an iconic figure and he has excelled in everything that he has touched,” said the Madibaz Sport judo manager.<\/p>\n
“I can honestly say that his late father, Mthunzi Mapitiza, can be very proud of his achievements. He raised a phenomenal young man.<\/p>\n
“Having known Lwazi since 2011, I have seen him grow into a model student from humble beginnings, nurtured by his father because his mother died when he was very young. That is not normally an easy path.<\/p>\n
“He delivered a formidable performance at the judo champs and deserves all the accolades coming his way.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Madibaz judo exponent Lwazi Mapitiza achieved a major career highlight when he returned with a bronze medal from the African Judo Championships in Madagascar in December. The tournament, which took place in Antananarivo, saw the 30-year-old Nelson Mandela University sport management student competing in the under-100kg category. The sport categorises competitors according to their weight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8636,8635,8634,1809,2800],"class_list":["post-40728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-more-sport","tag-african-judo-championships","tag-judo","tag-lwazi-mapitiza","tag-madibaz-sport","tag-nelson-mandela-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40728","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=40728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}