Knysna cycle academy unchains youth from tough social realities

Iain Coetzee, the head of sports and logistics at the academy. during a private cricket coaching session. (Photo: Julia Evans)

By Julia Evans

21 Jun 2022

The Knysna Sport Academy offers free sports development to the surrounding community, giving youngsters an escape from tough social realities and teaching them life skills.

Just 2km down the hill from Hornlee township is the Knysna Sport Academy, where more than 100 children from the surrounding community can be found every afternoon playing cricket or golf, greasing their bike chains or bantering with their teammates as they set off for a ride.

It was founded in 1992 as a cricket academy, but soon its founder, Keith Cretchley, saw a need to branch out to development and offer sport to the less-privileged residents just up the hill.

“I thought it was a good place for me to stay out of trouble. Because… I was the definition of trouble,” said Damon Terblanche (21), the academy’s best rider, who lives in Dam Se Bos in Hornlee.

In 2008, the Knysna Sport School Development Trust was established. It receives donations from the Knysna community and other donors to help fund the programmes and the equipment.

“Let’s not kid ourselves – cycling is an expensive sport,” said Iain Coetzee, the head of sports and logistics at the academy.

Head cycling coach Paulus Sigonyela said coming to the academy was a blessing, since he was able to work with kids and share the idea 'of trying to make them believe that they can try and get something – if they want to'. (Photo: Julia Evans)

“If you want to compete at the highest level, you need the right equipment. So we’re very fortunate that the Knysna community has been very good to us and has donated top-quality bicycles that our youngsters can use.”

In 2021, six of the academy’s riders received provincial colours for cross-country and marathon mountain biking, including Terblanche.

Terblanche, who started cycling at 15 after a friend from the academy convinced him to join, said he cycles not to become a professional athlete but just because he loves it. “And just because I love it, I started seeing progress.”

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Terblanche races in the under-23 category, which is just below the Elite riders and a very competitive age group. In 2021, he was the Eden (regional) mountain bike cross-country and mountain bike marathon champion after winning the Eden series.

Out of the 28 races he competed in, only twice did he not make the podium.

After spotting his potential, Absolute Motion – one of the biggest cycling academies in South Africa – offered him free private coaching in 2021.

His private coach, Marike Vreken, who is a level-one cycling coach, said she met Terblanche during lockdown, when her sports academy started weekly social mountain bike rides with the local Knysna children when there was no school sport.

Head cycling coach Paulus Sigonyela said he teaches the children in his community to be disciplined. (Photo: Julia Evans)

After finding out that Terblanche wanted to race the Knysna Bull, a three-day stage race that was three months away, Vreken offered to coach him.

“He was so diligent and committed in his training, and then sadly the race was cancelled,” she said.

“But because he was so diligent in his training, I could not ‘drop’ him after the three-month ‘trial’ period and I then said that we would find other races, and that is how our journey started 18 months ago.”

In 2022, Terblanche finished runner-up in the Elite field in the Eden mountain bike cross-country series and placed seventh in the Elite Western Cape mountain bike cross-country champs.

Terblanche said that when he started, he never thought he’d win a race, and it hasn’t always been easy – during 2021’s Elite Western Cape mountain bike cross-country champs he was lapped.

“If you are lapped, you are pulled off, and may not complete your race,” said Vreken.

“This year, he came back with a new fighting spirit for the Western Cape race and finished seventh, which is a huge achievement, considering he is also riding with inferior equipment, compared with the other riders.”

Vreken added: “I really have huge respect for Damon’s work ethic, but also his positive attitude in life. He has suffered a few setbacks, which is normal in competitive sport, and he does not let these setbacks get him [down]. He always bounces back with new zest and energy. He has improved his mountain bike skills to such an extent that he is now helping the younger kids with their bike-handling skills.”

Paulus Sigonyela, the head coach at the Knysna Sport Academy who coached Terblanche for five years from the beginning, said: “I’m very proud of him, since he… [made] me feel like I can survive.”

Terblanche and Sigonyela started competing at the same time, and Sigonyela said that when they started no one believed they would make it.

As a sportsman himself, previously a division three soccer player, and having worked alongside disabled children with an occupational therapist, working with kids and sport has always been part of Sigonyela’s life.

He said he wanted to volunteer because he has “got experience of keeping them [kids] out of trouble, and I’m staying in a community where trouble is”.

Sport as a tool to empower the young

Sigonyela has a passion for sport because it helped him when he was younger, and he has seen first-hand how it can change people’s lives.

“It helped me a lot because it is taking me out of stresses and depression. Like, ‘I don’t have money or I don’t have enough food… you end up forgetting,” said Sigonyela. “It helps your mindset to focus on doing something.”

Iain Coetzee, the head of sports and logistics at the academy, at a private cricket coaching session. (Photo: Julia Evans)

Along with Terblanche, Sigonyela has seen how sport has changed young people’s lives. In his community there is a lot of drug use among youngsters, and one of the boys he coached who was using drugs when he first joined at 13 changed when he started the sport.

His student is now 19, no longer uses drugs and has a good job in construction.

Another boy he coached arrived at the academy when he was 16 and was involved in drugs. He had dropped out of school with two years to go, but after joining the club he went back, passed matric and is now studying at university.

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Vreken said: “I think sport, and especially youth sport, is so important because it gives those youngsters a purpose and an outlet to escape from (often) negative social environments at home.”

Terblanche said cycling has given him an escape from the social ills of unemployment and criminality that afflict his peers and community.

Vreken said: “Often you will see an ‘underprivileged’ rider with less-worthy equipment but with a hunger to achieve something and prove their ability and worth. You will often see that those riders are the ones with the mental skills and ‘mind over matter’ to hang in a little longer before they give up, unlike other more privileged riders who just receive the very best because their parents can afford it, but lack the hunger and mental skills to not give up.”

Sigonyela said that coming to the academy was a blessing, since he was able to work with kids and share the idea “of trying to make them believe that they can try and get something – if they want to. They only need to follow the right channels.” DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.

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Sport as a tool to empower the young