South African teenage Paralympic athlete Simone Kruger says adding a second gold medal for Team SA was all God’s plan. The 19-year-old broke the Paralympic record with a throw of 38.70m in the Women’s F38 discus in Paris on Friday evening.
Kruger reserved praise for everyone who supported her journey from day one.”It feels amazing, I don’t know how to explain it. I have many people who have stood by me throughout this journey, they have prayed for me and told me to do my best and God will do the rest, and I really believed it,” said Kruger.
“It was already God’s plan, the whole situation here – it was already planned out before it even happened. I just want to thank every single person who has been behind me, and every single athlete who came to watch. It was such an amazing experience.”
Kruger endured a challenging first round, after two big throws from China’s Yingli Li and Colombia’s Xiomara Saldarriga Hernandez saw her dropping to the third spot. She admits it felt good thriving under intense competition.
“The closer the competition, the more I know I have to do better. I tell myself to do better. I think it was such an amazing thing to be in such a close competition because the gold medal could have gone to anyone of us,” she added.
“Just looking at the distance between the three of us, just having this intense competition was amazing to me.”Kruger opened with a Paralympic record of 37.69m, which was 4.51m further than the previous mark set at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Story credit: SABC Sport
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