PARALYMPICS 2024: Simoné Kruger keeps promise and bags discus gold
On Friday night, Kruger competed in the Women's F38 discus where she broke the Paralympic record and won South Africa's second gold medal with a throw of 38.70m.
Para-athlete Simoné Kruger will represent South Africa at the 2024 Paralympics. Picture: Jacques Nelles/ Eyewitness News.
JOHANNESBURG - True to her word, Simoné Kruger won a gold medal for South Africa at the Paris Paralympic Games.
On Friday night, Kruger competed in the Women's F38 discus where she broke the Paralympic Record and won South Africa's second gold medal with a throw of 38.70m.
Ahead of that competition, she had said to Eyewitness News: "I’m really excited about Paris it’s my second Paralympic Games because I went to Tokyo. But I think, personally, it's going to be a different experience because, with COVID and stuff like that, there were so many restrictions. So it's going to be, I think, more exciting than the Paralympics in Tokyo, but I want to break the world record and take the gold medal again," said Kruger.
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The 19-year-old started her athletics journey 10 years ago. She was enthused by her sister while training for discus and decided to take up the discipline and realised that she had a knack for it.
At the age of 12, the youngster commenced with discus competitions and won most of them, thus building self-confidence in the process.
The world champion won South Africa's second gold medal and broke the world record in the women’s discus with a throw of 38.82m at the Kobe 2024 World Para Athletics Championships in Japan, in May.
In 2023, the then-18-year-old rewrote history at the world champs in the F38 discus event, setting a new world record with a throw of 38.1m to snatch the gold medal.