Coetzee looks to win first gold medal at Paralympics

The 2024 Paris Paralympic Games are in full flow and although team South Africa are missing some of their medal-winning athletes from Tokyo, there will be high expectation for Coetzee to reproduce some of the best form we have seen of her in recent years.

Team South Africa secured seven medals at the 2021 Tokyo Games and two of those came from the 31-year-old Coetzee, who won a silver medal in her much-fancied T11 1500m and later added an impressive bronze medal in the T11 Marathon.

The stage will be set for the Bloemfontein-born athlete to make sparks fly as she reignites her love for the City of Paris after she backed up her Paralympics silver medal with another second place finish in the T11 1500m at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships.

Coetzee will be taking part in her third straight Paralympic Games, and she is fresh off a bronze medal win in the T11 1500m in May at the Kobe World Championships. Her latest challenge excites her and she is happy to have the pressure and expectations, but she also aims to enjoy herself in the process.

“You always experience a certain degree of pressure, but I think it’s not letting that pressure get to you but just enjoying the sport and having fun,” she told Independent Newspapers.

“If you have been a medallist before there is always a little bit of pressure, but the trick is to not let the medals become so deep that it overshadows the actual enjoyment of the sport and the privilege that it is to compete here. That is because in the end this is what we sacrifice four years of our lives for.

“I feel a bit more ready for the 1500m than the marathon; we have been preparing on the track a lot more than we have been on the road because the 1500m is my main event.”

The 31-year-old has taken a lot of lessons from her exposure in world competitions, and that has helped her grow as an all-round athlete. Coetzee is a visually impaired athlete and the role her guide plays in preparation, and in the race is as important as her’s, if not more so.

“In Rio I had a completely different experience, I was disqualified in my 1500m race and I think for me that was a great growing point, in a sense that I had to learn how to deal with disappointment and still be able to come back and perform,” she said.

“We have to be equally fit; in fact, he has to be fitter than me. Fortunately he’s a man and he is much stronger than me. You have to prepare yourself and keep yourself mentally and physically fit to achieve optimal results.”