Simoné Kruger closes the World Para Champs with discus world record & gold medal
The 18-year-old rewrote history in the F38 discus event, setting a new world record with a throw of 38.1m to snatch the gold medal.
Para-athlete Simone Kruger recorded two South African records and two African records at the Winelands International Para Athletics Competition in 2023. Picture: Andries Kruger/ Facebook
JOHANNESBURG - Para-athlete Simoné Kruger closed the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, France with a bang.
The 18-year-old rewrote history in the F38 discus event, setting a new world record with a throw of 38.1m to snatch the gold medal.
"This was the proudest experience I ever had. My feelings were full of so many emotions, but the enormous effort made me so proud. She went 100% for the win," said Andries Kruger, Simoné's father, told Eyewitness News.
Kruger was in Paris as his daughter's coach and captured all of Team SA's competition moments.
"This competition we handled very differently. To be mentally prepared, we decided we needed to achieve an enormous goal of 40m in practice in SA, so that the pressure in Paris be zero. This strategy gave her peace and I could see that it built confidence and gave her great joy," said the proud father.
The F38 is for field athletes with coordination and movement affected to a low degree in the lower trunk and legs, down one side or the whole body.
Eyewitness News spoke to Simoné Kruger, whose disability is Hemiplegia, which falls under cerebral palsy, which puts her in the F38 class, ahead of the World Championships.
“During my mother’s pregnancy, I had a stroke which caused a part of the brain to be without oxygen and died. We did an MR scan when I was only three-years-old and this showed clearly that the front left side of my brain no longer functions. The effect of this was that at that moment, the right side of my body lost all its memory and could not do its normal functions anymore.”
The ever-impressive Kruger has achieved a groundbreaking milestone by setting a new African record for the F38 class in discus at Pilditch in Pretoria, on 20 May, 2023.
She overtook the previous record of 34.74m by an impressive margin of over 1.5m, propelling the discus to an extraordinary distance of 36.38m.
In February this year, Simoné broke four records at the Winelands International Para Athletics Competition where she recorded two South African and two African records in two sporting codes - shot put and discus.
"When I was in grade 2, that was at the age of eight, my sister commenced with shot put training and I decided at that age already I also want to try this. I did not find it difficult and decided to continue although I could not compete yet. I actually find it a very enjoyable sport. Two years later, I started competing at a school level and won most of my events.
"At 9, when my sister started training for discus, I also joined and immediately realised that I could be good in discus and trained as much as I could. At the age of 12, I commenced with competitions in discus and also won most of my competitions. This gave me a lot of confidence and thus I enjoyed it a lot," said Kruger.
The Dubai 2019 World Championship silver medallist began practicing shot put at age eight and started competing at age 10. She took up the discus at age nine and entered her first competition at age 12.
The youngster has medalled twice at the World Junior Paralympic Championships - at age 14 she won a silver medal at the World Senior Paralympic Championships and broke the World F38 discus record.