From Cashier to African Queen

In celebration of the women’s month, Athletics South Africa (ASA) pays tribute to Janice Josephs, SA Record Holder in the heptathlon event.

Fairy tales always end in …. “and they lived happily ever after”, and so should this one.

Janice Josephs won her first major international title at the 2006 Africa Championships in the heptathlon after having almost quit the sport.

She was a very promising young sprinter, originally from the Western Province, and more recently the Boland.  She went to Chile in 2000 to represent South Africa at the IAAF World Junior Championships in the 100m and 200m where she was largely expected to challenge for a medal.

But injury put that ambition to bed and on her return to South Africa, Janice faced some very tough decisions.

Having grown up in the disadvantaged area of Steenberg in the Cape Flats and sharing a 2-bedroom house with 6 other people, Janice could never fully commit to her passion and incredible talent of athletics.

Despite the assistance of MacSteel Maestro for the Future, Janice was swimming upstream. Meastro’s is an initiative by the Sports Science Institute of South Africa that assists young talented athletes in making life decisions and providing support structures such as education, life skills, nutrition and scientific training.

But all of this was of no good if Janice couldn’t support herself financially and sponsorships were scarce. Janice became desperate and started working as a cashier at Woolworths.

But standing on your feet all day is no good for an exceptional athlete, and Janice was close to quitting the sport she loves so much.

In 2002 she met Coach William Banks who persuaded her not to give up.  So impressed was Banks with her potential that he took her out of her cashiers job and sponsored her himself. Banks also arranged for her to move to an apartment that he also sponsored.

Then coach and athlete started to worked on her start and the various phases of the sprint. The results were evident as she won double Gold at the South African Championships in 2003.

During a training session that included hurdling, Banks discovered that Janice was a natural, and with her sprint talent and natural ability in the long jump the idea was born that maybe Janice could become a quality Heptathlete.

Both Banks and Janice met with a lot of resistance in the early days of her switch as many officials, friends and coaches – misguidedly – told her she should stay with sprinting. But the two persevered and her efforts started to bear fruit.

In June of 2003 William Banks took Janice Josephs to Arles in France for the annual Heptathlon competition – part of the IAAF Multi discipline circuit.

For the first time Janice met with the world’s best Heptathlete’s. She finished 9th,and a career in the 7 event Heptathlon was now a reality.

Each year Janice embarks on a short tour of Europe to compete against the World’s best. It is a policy that is clearly beginning to pay dividends.

In March this year Janice improved her South African Record in the Heptathlon to finish 5th at the Commonwealth Games. What impressed many experts and former detractors was the way in which she hung on to run a personal best in the 800m, her least favourite event.

That 5th spot was the result of 4 years of hard winter training.

Janice is starting to make the Heptahtlon world sit up and take notice of her performances after putting together an impressive 6248 points in Arles this year. Had the wind reading not been too strong in the running events, this would have been yet another South African record for Janice in the Heptathlon.

Finally, the big breakthrough came at this year’s African Championships, in Mauritius.  The gold medal win means the Janice will compete for Africa at the World Cup in Athens in September against the best in world, and that means she has arrived.

Janice has her eyes set on another horizon – 6500+ points and a medal at the 2008 Olympic Games.

And that as they say in the classics should mean they lived happily ever after.

Janince Josephs, ASA salutes you as a true inspiration to women athletes!