Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 123, October 2019 | Page 55

would make the provincial team for National Champs.
Up until then, Dominique had trained running once
a week, and raced each Friday for the school. She
finished 44 th , and was bitterly disappointed. Looking
back, she says she can now recall the day with some
humour, but it was anything but funny back then. school, but yet did not seem
100% committed to my
running. That was when he
encouraged me to put all
my eggs into the running
basket.”
“I was in tears, and my mom asked me why I was
so upset. I was stunned... I mean, wasn’t it obvious?
I didn’t make the team. My mom asked me if had
expected to make the team – the coach in her coming
out – and when I said ‘uhm, yes,’ she told me that
maybe I should consider training for it.” And that’s
when the dream was born, and Dom started to
train, doing much of her running in the Green Belt in
Constantia, where the family lived. “I always knew I would
need to make some hard
and tough decisions,
so when I did decide to
throw all my eggs into one
basket so to speak, I did
not think I was sacrificing
anything or losing out, I just
knew it needed to be done
to make the next step to get
to the Olympics, my dream.”
But with that new focus came a
different life. While her friends were out
“partying,” as Dominique puts it, she took
the decision to go to bed early, make her
own lunch for school, and make sure that those
lunches always aided her in chasing her dream.
Introduction to the Track
Dominique was active in other school sports, but
continued cross country. At the age of 13, her mother
took her to her first track meeting in the old Green
Point Stadium, where she ran the 1500m. Dominique
finished second, but it was her time that caught the
eye. “I broke five minutes in the 1500m, and one of
the officials said to my mother afterwards that it was
pretty impressive for someone who had literally run on
the track for the first time. I loved it, I told my mother
that I felt I was flying, and felt so much better than
running cross country.”
Renee then began looking for a coach to help
Dominique, and found the right match in Johan
Fourie, the great miler of the 80’s, who was
immediately impressed with Dominique. “I always
ask any athlete who joins me what they want, and
Dominique said that one day she wanted to represent
South Africa at the Olympic Games,” he says. “Now
youngsters will often say that when they first start
training with you, but you can very quickly tell if
this is only a dream, or something that the athlete
really wants. And Dominique really wanted it. My
biggest challenge with her was not to get her to do
the training sessions, but to hold her back. She was
determined and had so much drive in her that it was
quite a challenge to not let her do too much.”
So, twice a week Dominique had to be driven to
Stellenbosch for training with Johan and his ‘Dog
Squad,’ as it was known. This was in addition to all the
other sport Dominique was actively involved in, such
as swimming and water polo in the summer, along
with cross country, hockey and netball in winter. It was
a busy schedule for a 13-year-old, but she flourished
in the more competitive environment of track training,
and a year later decided to head to boarding school in
Stellenbosch to be closer to the track.
Greater Focus
The move to Rhenish Girls High School was a clear
indication of the determination Dominique had to
make her dream of competing at the Olympics a
reality. Initially she still swam and played water polo
in summer and hockey in winter, but she was also
able to train virtually every day with the Dog Squad.
This was in addition to triathlon, which Dominique
also became involved in. Then in the middle of her
Grade 10 year, Johan had a heart-to-heart with
Dominique. “I had come from water polo practice
and was exhausted. Johan took me aside and said
to me, I had made all these decisions and sacrifices,
moving to Stellenbosch and going to boarding
Today, Dominique is very philosophical about her
choices. She is still at the peak of her career, so
asking if she would in later years possibly regret not
having what is called a “normal childhood,” she is
adamant that she made the right choices. “I don’t
think I will ever regret my choices. I always wanted to
run at the Olympics, and if I hadn’t tried really hard
to get there, I would always ask myself, ‘What if?’ So
no, I definitely do not think that I will ever look back
and say I should have had a ‘normal childhood.’ I feel
I have been so blessed to be able to live my dream.
Few people can say that.”
Also, she acknowledges that an athlete’s career is
relatively short – at best you have 10, maybe 15 years
at your peak. “You have to make the most of those
years. I can always do things in later years that I
maybe couldn’t while competing, but as an athlete,
you literally have that one time frame.”
The Big Move
After matriculating, Dominique earned an athletics
scholarship with Arkansas University in the USA.
“In many ways, having been at boarding school
did prepare me to be away from my family, but it
was still really, really tough to do so. I do not call it
sacrifices that I have had to make, rather decisions,
but it was still a hard decision. It was the right one,
though. I was able to Major in Business Marketing
and Minor in Logistics, had really good training,
and very, very tough competition, which no doubt
made me into the runner I am today. Also I met my
husband here. So it may have been tough, but it
was the right move.”
Dominique met and married her college sweetheart in
Arkansas, which did make the move easier, but she
freely admits that had Cameron not been with her
on her first return to South Africa for the Christmas
Holidays, that trip back to the United States would
have been a much harder proposition. “Often South
Africans come back after a year of their studies and
when they return to see family back home, they do not
go back to their studies. Homesickness is hard. There
were also study pressures, and athletic pressures – I
had to perform, because I was there on an athletics
scholarship – and I struggled with the food. Also,
being an international student, I did at times feel a
bit out. Make no mistake, I was having fun, but it
was really hard. So having Cameron to go back with,
made it a lot easier. Had he not been there... well, I am
not sure what would have happened. It would have
definitely been extremely hard to get on that plane
back to Arkansas.”
Part of Dom’s immense drive is that she almost feels
an obligation to her family, over and above to herself,
to make her athletics career and dream work out. “I
do not feel that I really missed out on anything with
the decisions I made, but that my family did. For me
to be able to chase my dream, they needed to make
sacrifices. Boarding school, moving to the US, and
having them come over here to watch me race. All in
aid of me being able to chase my dream.”
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