Grahamstown locals, Dinilesizwe Madikwa and Nomphelo Stuurman, are attending the Korfball World Championships to be held in China scheduled for October of this year.
Grahamstown locals, Dinilesizwe Madikwa and Nomphelo Stuurman, are attending the Korfball World Championships to be held in China scheduled for October of this year.
Madikwa and Stuurman have been preparing for the championships at the Egazini Sports Centre in Joza since their selection to the national team. Not even the broken windows and run-down equipment in the change rooms dims their excitement.
Korfball is similar to netball and basketball. A true mixed-gender-team sport, consisting of eight-players a team, four female and four males it is an unusual sport. Once a player has the ball, he or she cannot dribble, run or walk with it. They can move one foot, as long the other remains in the same spot.
There is little awareness of korfball in the Grahamstown community, nor does the town have a korfball coach. This means, sponsorship is limited and in order for teams to practice they must fly to Pretoria.
Madikwa coaches first-team basketball at Kingswood in his spare time, and the 25-year-old made it on to the national korfball team last year.
“I was not surprised at all when Dinilesizwe made the team," his teammate says proudly. "He is a very good shooter.” Stuurman is a stooge at Kingswood College and, like Madikwa, she also coaches basketball – but for the girls' first team.
A former pupil at Nombulelo High school, Madikwa is 21, and is in her first year at the Grahamstown Technical College, studying finance. When her place on the national team was announced in July this year, she couldn’t believe it, because she was introduced to the sport only last year and she believes playing basketball for the first team at school, her local club side and the Makana Spears, prepared her for rapid success in korfball.
The World Championships are held every four years, and the 2011 championship runs from 27 October to the 6 November. Madikwa and Stuurman believe their biggest rivals will be the Netherlands and China, who rank first and second in the world respectively. Stuurman and Madikwa hope to introduce korfball into the Grahamstown community – and who better to do so than our very own stars.
