Katiso Hamps is over
the moon! Soon he will be flying
overseas to Belgium.
Thembi Masser
Thembi Masser
The amiable, shy lad who previously had a dreadful sickness
defined by doctors as ‘the undefined sickness’, is a gymnast of note from the
John Wesley Community Centre in Etwatwa, Benoni.
He started the sport at the centre in 20111 and along the
way he has amassed gold and a bronze.
“It was in Cape Town late last year,” he explains. He won the gold in
acrobatics and the bronze in trampoline. “I am at level 10 in acrobatics and
level 3 in trampoline.”
He is only 18, but attends school at an adult centre.
Regular schools shunned him because of his illness. So he is in level 4, which
is grade 11. He relates a bizarre incident about his extraordinaire talent
during the Indoor Pacific Championships at Sun City last year. “It was scary,”
he remembers. “I mean I was competing against myself. There was no competition
for me. So I won everything on offer.”
So he is excited that he will be going to Belgium to compete
with the Chinese and the Russians. It will be overly exciting because it will
be his first time on a plane going far away overseas for the first time. He will be accompanied by either his coach,
Adri Koekemoer or his regular partner, Angelic Hussey.
One of his trainers, Trevor Lubisi, is happy for him. “He is
an exciting young bloke and the world is waiting for him.”
Katiso says his mother, Caroline, a butchery worker, is
glad that he is going places, and so are his siblings. “We all live in a
cramped RDP house but I am determined to do well and be a ‘flying doctor’ in
the future to help my mother who raised us all alone.”
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