Olympians Visit SA to Inspire Teenage Girls to Run

Ask any sports enthusiast and they will tell you that there are loads of benefits to participating in sports – especially in your teenage years. After witnessing first-hand how running can change your life, both on and off the track, Olympic Champion, Mechelle Lewis Freeman is on a mission to contribute to the development of athletics and empower young women and girls through her TrackGirlz Programme. This month Freeman, along with Olympic Gold Medalist, Natasha Hastings brought Track Girlz to SA for an empowerment camp for high school girls.

The women were brought to South Africa through a partnership with the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education and the Africa Children’s Hope Foundation and kicked off the Cape Town leg of their first international camp tour with a 5KM run along the popular RunWestin route at The Westin hotel in Cape Town on Friday 9 March 2018.

The South African tour saw Track Girlz and Hastings’ Tea Time with Tasha programme host two camps in South Africa, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg, to show teenage girls that healthy lifestyles and exercise can be a stepping stone for excellence.

While Tea Time with Tasha is designed to inspire teenage girls to maintain a standard of excellence, Track Girlz gives girls access to sports stars who can encourage them and give them advice on everything from education and nutrition to recovery and positive mindset development.

South African girls who attended the events were treated to a fun day out with the group of inspirational ladies and given the tools and advice to take their sports and personal lives to a new level.