Determined Marioné Fourie keeps training despite wasp sting

Not even a wasp sting on the right ankle could stop Marioné Fourie from pressing through with her Olympic training at the national athletics team’s camp in Montpellier recently.

Her ankle swelled up, but she insisted she didn’t want to miss a session. “I had to train with it,” she said, adding the worst part was when it started itching.

“I put a lot of pressure and ice on it and my recovery boot as well,” said Fourie, who lowered her national 100m hurdles record to 12.49sec while finishing third in Hengelo nearly a month ago.

The 22-year-old with electric blue eyes is a perfectionist, always critiquing every performance as she looks to improve every element of her race. “I had a bit of a bad start, I could have come in the top two maybe if it wasn’t for the start.”

Even so, she was so focused that she was able to power her way up the field to deliver a lifetime best. If she can speed up to 12.30 or so, she could get close to the podium in Paris.

Fourie, who is due to race in the 100m hurdles heats on Wednesday morning, has a firm goal for the Games. “Definitely the finals. And then, like everyone says, anything can happen. So I think just making the finals for our first step,” she said.

The thing about her is how she consistently improves, and that’s what makes her one of the top prospects to watch.

In nine races so far this season, she has dipped below 13 seconds on seven occasions, including the last five, starting with her silver medal run at the African championships in Douala, Cameroon, in June.

Coach Jaun Strydom is convinced there’s plenty more speed in her, pointing out that when they went to Hengelo, they flew out of South Africa later than planned, arriving only the afternoon before the race.

Fourie and Strydom were the first to arrive at the Montpellier camp, set up in a bid to get South Africa back onto the Olympic athletics medals table after missing out in Tokyo.

The other advantage of the camp was to keep athletes out of the Olympic village until three days before their competition, otherwise they tend to get restless waiting for their competition while watching an array of stars already in battle.

But being away from home for too long can have its drawbacks, something Fourie recognises. “There are sometimes emotions, you miss home, but it’s part of the game,” she admitted.

“I phone my loved ones at home and then just keep busy reading books or watching Netflix, just keeping my mind busy.”

Sometimes they’ll sit around the pool, with Strydom occasionally eating cookies, a treat that Fourie can’t indulge in. “I have the self-control not to eat it,” she said.

Fourie’s ankle was almost fully healed by the time the Sunday Times saw her.

It was just above a tattoo on her foot she had inked in honour of the four pupils who died in the 2019 bridge collapse at Driehoek High School in the Vaal Triangle. The tattoo bears the name “Hoekies” and two inter-linked triangles. “I knew one of the guys,” said Fourie, in Grade 11 at the time.

The Tuks sports science student appreciates her history and, if she gets her way, she’ll be making history of her own.