Javelin queen Jo-Ané du Plessis sticks with coach Terseus despite Cape Town move

Javelin queen Jo-Ané du Plessis moved to Cape Town after getting married last year, but she’s still sticking with Potchefstroom-based coach Terseus Liebenberg.

Du Plessis, who won the Olympic silver in Paris under her maiden name Van Dyk, and Liebenberg both took major prizes at the Athletics South Africa awards at Montecasino, north of Johannesburg, on Saturday night.

Du Plessis received two trophies for top female and top female field athlete for 2024 and Liebenberg took top male coach.

But Du Plessis is not letting her new life with husband Johan in Kraaifontein end her nine-year relationship with Liebenberg, during which she also won the 2016 junior world championship silver.

“It’s big changes for me now, moving from Potch to Cape Town. And ja, for me, just the biggest challenge is settling in and just finding my space,” said the 27-year-old, who is training at the University of Stellenbosch.

The duo are hooking up for two weeks each month for practice sessions.

“Currently we’re doing once a month — I go for one week to Potch, and he comes once a month for one week to Stellenbosch.”

Du Plessis made news achieving Team South Africa’s sixth Olympic medal at Stade de France in August as she achieved that without much support from official structures back home, relying instead on much-needed help from her parents.

She had to dig deep to continue competing after finishing her studies in Potchefstroom. At the 2023 world championships she was the only South African field athlete to get into a final.

Her Olympic silver was one of three South African medals not funded through the Operation Excellence programme run by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc).

Sports minister Gayton McKenzie initially weighed in, saying the department of sport would refund Du Plessis's parents for their expenditure supporting their daughter, though later backtracked on that assurance, blaming a “miscommunication”.

Du Plessis reached the Games podium as a dark horse contender, but she’s planning on repeating her success at the world championships in Tokyo in September.

“The plan for this year is Tokyo world champs [and] a medal at world champs.”

Du Plessis isn’t just looking at bettering her 64.22m personal best but is also aiming to improve her performances on her off days.

“Definitely not below 60m this year. At nationals [in Potchefstroom in April] I want to throw 63m, 64m maybe.

I’m now 27, and we [javelin-throwers] start going into our prime now, so you never know what’s going to happen.

—  Jo-Ane du Plessis

“Of course, I would like to break the 65m barrier this year.”

It was only last year that she surpassed Justine Robbeson (63.49m) to rank second on the South African all-time list, and she’s not shying away from the notion of trying to beat Sunette Viljoen’s 69.35m African record.

“I mean, it’s an amazing record, it’s really actually phenomenal. It’s top seven in the world ... it’s like three metres from world record. So it's quite big, but [it's] definitely [a goal] in the long term, not this year.

“I’m now 27, and we [javelin-throwers] start going into our prime now, so you never know what’s going to happen.”

For now she feels the arrangement with Liebenberg is working.

“I think I’m settled in by now. I feel I’ve found my feet. I started training fourth of November ... we’ll see, when the competitions come, if it’s working or not and then the results will show.”