Zola Budd Pieterse, a renowned former South African Athlete and World Record Holder, a Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) alumna, who was a top athlete with national colours, for the former Technikon Free State, visited the institution on Tuesday, 23 September 2014 as part of her ploughing back program. Following a brief in-house presentation on the day, Zola took the athletes to the soccer field to conduct running clinics. During the drills, she demonstrated and shared some few tips on the dynamics behind warm-up exercises that sets the body muscles on the right tone before one embarks on a marathon.
Her visit to CUT was in response to a letter that was wrote to her by athletes to visit and share her expertise, and as an exemplified CUT Alumna, she did not hesitate to heed the call. “I accepted the invite in high spirit because I knew accepting it would give me the opportunity to plough back to the community,” said she. As part of her ploughing back programme, Zola donated 15 pairs of Newton running shoes to CUT athletes as a courtesy of her USA Newton Running Development Program, which she is currently administering in South Africa.
