Zeney our Young Local Star gets ASA Award

A local female athlete from Pretoria, who performed brilliantly on the international stage last year, was named Female Athlete of the Year by Athletics South Africa last week.

After initially entering the South African senior athletics environment like a fresh breeze when she was still a junior, the potential world star, Zeney van der Walt, experienced a slight post-Covid slump in her career in 2021.

However, last year she was back to her best and her achievements in 2022 resulted in her last week being named Athletics South Africa’s (ASA) female athlete of the year.

𝙎𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝘼𝙈𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙊𝙐𝙂𝙃 𝙇𝙄𝙆𝙀 𝘼 𝙎𝙏𝙀𝘼𝙈 𝙏𝙍𝘼𝙄𝙉! 🚆🥉

🇿🇦 Oh my word! Zeney van der Walt snatches third place right ON THE FINISH LINE in the women's 400m hurdles final and prevents a Jamaican clean sweep 💪 pic.twitter.com/aY3rypalB6

— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) August 6, 2022

Among her top achievements of 2022 are winning back the national title in the 400m hurdles, her two gold medals (400m hurdles and 4x400m relay) at the African championship in Mauritius; her bronze medal in the 400m hurdles at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and her qualification for the semi-finals at the world championships in America in the 400m hurdles.

In addition, she finished the year (2022) ranked 20th in the world in the 400m hurdles – a particularly good performance considering that she was only 21 years old during the local season.

Over the past five years since winning her first junior world title, Van der Walt – a two-time junior world champion – has improved her personal best time in the 400m hurdles by almost four seconds.

Zeney van der Walt She is therefore still far from realizing her full potential and it is believed that this former pupil of Afrikaans Hoër Meisieskool has the potential to win Olympic and World Championship medals for South Africa in the future.