ATHCO

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Chanel Kruger didn't grow up a runner. At school she only played netball, and by her own admission she hated putting in the work. Her sister was the track star. That changed during COVID. Her sister kept training at home, so Chanel joined her, mostly just to spend time together. They worked throug…

One in four children in South Africa is affected by childhood stunting. And if a child doesn't get the nutrition they need in their first two years of life, the effects can't be reversed later. Jeremy Cook is a motion designer with a nine-to-five. He's not an elite athlete, he's not running across…

Cassandra signed her partner up for an Ironman 70.3 as a birthday present without asking him. She signed herself up too, then went back to work on a cruise ship and came home with three and a half months to train for a race she didn't fully understand. Her goal at Mossel Bay was simply to finish. …

Vicky-Leigh Kruger wasn't sporty, was bullied for her weight, and hit a wall in grade 11, glandular fever, 21 days out of school, a colon infection, her gran passing, and five days away from repeating the year. Her words: she had no purpose and she was drowning. She found CrossFit at 16 through on…

Oscar Armstrong was a professional kitesurfer from 16 to 22. Sponsored, homeschooled, travelling the world on tour. Then he burnt out, moved to the Caribbean, picked up a camera and built an entirely different career. Since then: Indonesia, Sardinia, a van in Oregon, marine conservation documentari…

Giorgia Wessels couldn't afford running shoes, so she showed up to sprint trials barefoot. A teacher asked why she was even there and she never went back. She walked into a gym at 17 instead, and that was over ten years ago. She was too shy to approach people on a commercial gym floor, so rather t…

Kyle Schoonbee rowed at the Tokyo Olympics. Five years of work, a ruthless centralised program, two stress fractures he never told anyone about. Then three weeks out from the Games the squad overcooked it. He took two strokes off the start line and watched the entire field disappear. He walked awa…

Vicky Van Der Merwe thought about the Olympics every day from the age of eight. She got there at 34. A hip injury cost her 2012. Glandular fever cost her 2016. By 2020 she'd stepped away, finished a law degree and moved on. Then her son was born in 2022 and two weeks later she told her husband she…

We started ATHCO to answer one question: can you turn a passion for sport into a full-time profession in South Africa? Twenty-seven episodes later, we have an answer and it's not the one we wanted. This is just the two of us being honest about what we've found. Why the best SA creators still have …