Photos courtesy of SA Hockey / ACK Sports Photography
HOW THATI ZULU CHANGED THE GAME
On 18 July, SA hockey player Thati Zulu nervously posted an emotional plea for financial support on Instagram. She wasn’ t sure what the reaction would be, but the overwhelming response from fellow athletes and supporters – and ultimately the country’ s sports minister – was beyond what she could have hoped for. We caught up with Thati ahead of the team’ s departure for the FIH Hockey World Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands to find out about that response and how the team are feeling …
The post: and I think that goes to just that mental shift of knowing that everything is sorted for World Cup, and we don ' t have to worry about trying to get money to get to the World Cup.
“ So a lot of positives. I ' ve received a lot of messages, which has been a little overwhelming, and I haven ' t really responded to a lot of them because the main focus right now is my hockey. I ' ve been playing a series [ against Namibia ], so it ' s been a lot but I ' m just really glad that I was able to speak out, and I think the timing of everything was perfect for me. It really, really helped me, and I ' m super stoked to be heading with the team next week off to Europe with our preparation. So, very happy, and I hope that this opens a lot more doors for the team in the future and that it’ s not just for now but really that it’ s going to be a long-term strategy in place to see how we get to the next tournament, which is obviously LA2028 – it’ s the big one, the Olympics. So, very happy, high spirits for sure at the camp and looking forward to what the future holds.
“ It’ s been a crazy day, with the minister announcing that he ' s donating 3 million to both the women ' s and men ' s teams. A lot of that obviously came as a response from my post that I made. And I think a lesson that a lot of people have learned is that speaking up can really, sometimes, lead to something great.
“ I ' m just happy that I was able to speak out and, for something to actually happen and benefit the team. Initially I was super worried about getting negative media, but I was really adamant on making sure that I expressed myself in the most respectful way, but also get through the point of how I was feeling and why I was feeling the way I was feeling.
“ So, super grateful that the minister has decided to donate 3 million to both the men ' s and women ' s teams. It ' s a huge relief for the team. I can already see that it ' s a huge relief for my teammates as well. You look at our performance today, it was much better than the previous days,
“ Then with regards to the World Cup, obviously now with the financial burden taken off of our shoulders, I think for us, it ' s really just focusing on our processes and making sure that everyone understands the different strategies for the different games and really just giving it our all. We have nothing to lose. Yes, we ' re the lowestranked team going into the tournament, but there’ s nothing like South African passion and pride. So we ' re definitely going to give it horns. There ' s been a lot of support coming in in the past few days after my post. So a whole lot of other people who have never watched hockey are now watching hockey, and I ' m going to advocate for the sport, for my teammates, for all the younger girls coming up in the South African ranks. It ' s been exciting and we’ re looking forward to it.”
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