The words no athlete ever wants to hear are, "Your career is over. You will never compete again," especially when you are in the prime of your career. Unfortunately, it does happen. In March, before the Gauteng North Athletics Championships, Jovan van Vuuren had to hear this "death sentence" pronounced by his doctor.

"I was utterly stunned by the fact that I might never compete again. I was not ready to quit on my dreams of winning a medal in the long jump at the World Athletics Championships or the Olympic Games. Now I had to hear that my right hamstring tendon was on the verge of snapping and that there was a high risk of an operation. I was devastated. It was as if my world had fallen apart."

The Tuks student-athlete's story, fortunately, did have a happy ending. Last week, a day after his 27th birthday, he got the all-clear from his doctor to start dreaming again. He still remembers the first time he went for a jog.

"It was only 20 minutes, but I smiled for every one of those minutes. Sometimes you must nearly lose something you are passionate about to appreciate it. I will never take anything for granted.

"I have much to be grateful for and so many people I am indebted to: my doctor in Bethlehem, Neil du Plessis (strength and conditioning coach), Greyling Viljoen (clinical psychologist), Steven Ball (TuksSport Director & Acting CEO of hpc), and everyone at Power2Health and PVM. Sometimes saying thank you seems so insignificant when you genuinely mean it.

"Special thanks to Neil du Plessis. If nine out of ten guys in a room tell you something can't be done, Neil will be the one to say it is possible. His only prerequisite to helping me was that he expected me to 100% believe I would compete again. If I did not, he could not help."

The 2022 UP-Tuks Sportsman of the Year is unsure when he will be back on the long jump field.

"What I know is that it will be foolish to rush anything. For the moment, I am only training in the gym. The hard reality is that my programme will have to be genuinely structured when I start training on the track. There will be no time for fooling around. Tests have shown that the chances of my tendon ever snapping are zero, but am I at risk of injuring my hamstring if I go about things haphazardly? It will be a case of doing it right or not at all.

Van Vuuren discloses that Wayde van Niekerk and Ruswahl Samaai supported him throughout my injury recovery process and told him that the ball is now literally in his court.

Interesting Fact: Since 2018, Van Vuuren has improved his best performance by 61 cm (7.55 m) to 8.16 m in 2022.