Zai Khan: SAFM | Radio 2000
ZAI KHAN IS LOGGED ON SPORTS SEVEN DAYS A WEEK
Radio 2000 and SAFM’s sports anchor was always determined to be a
female voice in sports.
Written by: Machaba Mastapola
“
I started out as a news
presenter and found out that
there was a niche for women
doing sports; SABC Sports was
looking for women and I was
determined to become part of the
team. I looked at the likes of Carol
Tshabalala and Lebo Motsoeli and
wanted to be like them,” says Zai
Khan. The 40 something year old
sports presenter and anchor from
Durban always loved radio
broadcasting from the days
when she was still studying BA in
Communications at university.
During that time Zai was juggling her
studies with being a waitress and
doing in-store radio at Edgars.
Between then and now, she worked
at Lotus FM as a presenter and was
in the corporate environment doing
media sales for SABC. Since she was
part of the broadcasting
corporation, Zai kept knocking
on doors and finally got to
join Radio 2000 in 2005
co-presenting a sports show with
Victor Khasu. “My first time on
air doing sports was with Victor
Khasu doing a show called Weekend
Sports; he was great as a leader
in terms of guiding me of how the
sports culture tonality works,”
she shares. “He taught me how
to run my own desk and I didn’t
have to rely on a technician to put
6
calls through or do live crossings
to matches.” In April 2018, Zai also
joined SAFM’s breakfast show with
Stephen Grootes as a sports
presenter. “At SAFM, we make sure
our sports bulletin comes before
other radio stations do theirs so that
we’re the first ones to break the sto-
ries; we also have a tennis
correspondent who is at
Wimbledon and US Open games
across the world,” she says. Zai
would like to see women sports grow
in the country and is excited about
the female soccer league launching
in 2019. “It’s a step in the right direc-
tion for us; we’ve got lots of women
behind the scenes doing extremely
hard work to showcase women in
sports,” says Zai.
“We were held back because of
perception and now we’re laying the
foundation and it will
grow organically.”
Zai’s ultimate favourite sports
person is Swiss professional
player Roger Federer. “He is such
an exemplary and classy sports
person,” she says about Federer.
Speaking of favourite sports people,
she also mentions Lucas Radebe,
Steven Pienaar, Teko Modise, and
former Pakistani cricketer Imran
Ahmed Khan Nazi who is now the
Prime Minister.
F R EQ U E N CY M AGA Z