Olwethu-Andiswa Zondo describes herself as a vessel, and as both a critic and a cheerleader. It hints at how she arrived here. Before the studio lights and the live microphone, Zondo was a water polo player and a swimmer, an athlete who loved her sport until her body stopped growing the way she needed it to. Adolescence ended one dream.
“Once I hit adolescence my body didn’t grow as it needed, so I quickly fell out of love with the sports that I was heavily involved in.”
Multi-Code Sports Broadcaster, Olwethu Zondo
The way back was through a microphone rather than a pool. Zondo found radio at Tuks FM while studying for her BA Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. The move took courage.
A high-school visit to a radio station had once ended with a presenter telling her she could do his job one day, only for friends to pick apart how she had spoken, leaving her confidence in pieces. That she put herself forward anyway, she says, “almost completely changed the trajectory of my life.” The degree became the path not taken. Broadcasting became the one she chose.
That choice now sits at the centre of her work with SuperSport Schools on channel 216, where she hosts magazine shows and presents from the studio and the field. What moves her most is the crossing from junior sport into the senior, professional game. Watching schoolchildren sprint, she has seen talent that stops her short. “Watching how fast those kids can run is absolutely insane,” she says, marvelling that some are “almost running at the same level as Akani Simbine.” Her own playing career faltered at that transition, and she is determined the athletes she covers feel carried through theirs.
“I want to make sure that doesn’t happen with any other youth.”
Behind the microphone she has learned to range widely, calling netball, water polo, cricket, rugby, hockey and athletics since 2023. None of it, she insists, is easy. Her method is part nerve and part homework.
“Once you speak with conviction, anybody can buy what you’re selling,” she says, before correcting any impression that conviction alone is enough. “People actually have no idea how much research goes into commentary,” she adds, listing the players, schools and past tournaments she must carry in her head. “It’s not something that you can wing.”
Zondo came up as a water polo player and swimmer before redirecting her energy towards a career behind the microphone.
Commentary remains a space where women are scarce. She credits SuperSport Schools with bringing through as many female voices as it can, and she is clear about what those voices add. Women, she says, bring “a very soothing, calm kind of energy” to balance the more rambunctious tone of much male commentary, and the balance between the two “sounds lovely.”
Zondo has watched the door widen as women’s competitions grow, pointing to the official women’s rugby league that made room for women to call the game. “The more that women in sport overall grows,” she says, the more the next young woman will believe the opportunity is there for her too.
Few examples make her case as plainly as netball. Zondo sees the Telkom Netball League as vital to keeping South African netball in step with the world, and she does not take its backing for granted. Sponsors are hard to win, she says, and in Telkom she sees one that has, in her words, “gone out on a limb and sponsored a female sport,” a code outside the country’s most-followed three.
This year’s TNL also opened a door she noticed at once, a place for an online broadcaster and a fresh face. The chance “to also be able to grow in the space and create another opportunity for women in sport,” she says, was the part that stood out.
Earlier in 2026 she anchored the English sports news at Soweto TV and produced its lifestyle show, an experience that taught her exactly where her gifts lie. “I am currently not a producer,” she says, grateful she tried it all the same. The anchor chair sharpened other tools, from the earpiece to the stilling of a naturally animated presence. A year as a production assistant at Backsports gave her the instinct to adapt when a broadcast goes wrong.
“If things go wrong, I’m able to adapt very quickly!”
One moment that told her she belonged was the FIFA World Cup 26 draw, which she covered as part of the Castle Lager activation, among football legends and big-name journalists. “It was like: I’m in the space, I’m doing the thing, I’m actually here,” she says. “That was something that was incredibly comforting, to know that I’ve made my space.”
Zondo anchored the English sports news at Soweto TV, sharpening the discipline and tonality the anchor chair demands.
She names Robert Marawa and Motshidisi Mohono, the broadcaster she calls the Queen of Rugby, as the figures who shaped her, citing Mohono’s poise and Marawa’s calm under pressure.
The best advice she carries is simpler than any technique. “Definitely be yourself, always,” she says. Audiences, she has learned, buy character before polish. “People are buying into your character. So how do you tell your story?”
Ask her for a proudest moment and she does not reach for a trophy. She is proudest of the times it got hard. “Nobody talks about the flip side of how difficult it is to chase your dreams,” she says, describing a point that felt like the end of the road. That she pushed past it and kept going is the achievement she holds onto. “Even when the going got tough, I still persevered.”
Her sights are set on the SA20, whose short-format energy she loves, and on the main SuperSport stage, with a promise to tell honest stories along the way.
The rising talent hosts magazine shows and reports from the studio and the field across SuperSport Schools. Photo: Charmaine Botes Visser
For the young South African girl who dreams of the screen but cannot yet see herself on it, she offers the clearest line of all.
“If you’re doing it for the right reasons, you will always get where you want to go!”
“If you genuinely believe that you have a passion for this… then a hundred percent follow that instinct all the way.” From a player who lost one game and found her voice in another, it sounds less like advice than a map of the road she has already walked.
Main Photo Caption: Olwethu-Andiswa Zondo has built a fast-rising career across live commentary, studio presenting and field journalism with SuperSport Schools, championing the next generation of young South African talent in sport. All Photos: Supplied
Photo 2 Caption: Zondo came up as a water polo player and swimmer before redirecting her energy towards a career behind the microphone.
Photo 3 Caption: Zondo anchored the English sports news at Soweto TV, sharpening the discipline and tonality the anchor chair demands.
Photo 4 Caption: The rising talent hosts magazine shows and reports from the studio and the field across SuperSport Schools. Photo: Charmaine Botes Visser
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From the Pool to the Microphone, Olwethu Zondo Finds Her Calling
Olwethu-Andiswa Zondo describes herself as a vessel, and as both a critic and a cheerleader. It hints at how she arrived here. Before the studio lights and the live microphone, Zondo was a water polo player and a swimmer, an athlete who loved her sport until her body stopped growing the way she needed it to. Adolescence ended one dream.
The way back was through a microphone rather than a pool. Zondo found radio at Tuks FM while studying for her BA Visual Studies at the University of Pretoria. The move took courage.
A high-school visit to a radio station had once ended with a presenter telling her she could do his job one day, only for friends to pick apart how she had spoken, leaving her confidence in pieces. That she put herself forward anyway, she says, “almost completely changed the trajectory of my life.” The degree became the path not taken. Broadcasting became the one she chose.
That choice now sits at the centre of her work with SuperSport Schools on channel 216, where she hosts magazine shows and presents from the studio and the field. What moves her most is the crossing from junior sport into the senior, professional game. Watching schoolchildren sprint, she has seen talent that stops her short. “Watching how fast those kids can run is absolutely insane,” she says, marvelling that some are “almost running at the same level as Akani Simbine.” Her own playing career faltered at that transition, and she is determined the athletes she covers feel carried through theirs.
“I want to make sure that doesn’t happen with any other youth.”
Behind the microphone she has learned to range widely, calling netball, water polo, cricket, rugby, hockey and athletics since 2023. None of it, she insists, is easy. Her method is part nerve and part homework.
“Once you speak with conviction, anybody can buy what you’re selling,” she says, before correcting any impression that conviction alone is enough. “People actually have no idea how much research goes into commentary,” she adds, listing the players, schools and past tournaments she must carry in her head. “It’s not something that you can wing.”
Commentary remains a space where women are scarce. She credits SuperSport Schools with bringing through as many female voices as it can, and she is clear about what those voices add. Women, she says, bring “a very soothing, calm kind of energy” to balance the more rambunctious tone of much male commentary, and the balance between the two “sounds lovely.”
Zondo has watched the door widen as women’s competitions grow, pointing to the official women’s rugby league that made room for women to call the game. “The more that women in sport overall grows,” she says, the more the next young woman will believe the opportunity is there for her too.
Few examples make her case as plainly as netball. Zondo sees the Telkom Netball League as vital to keeping South African netball in step with the world, and she does not take its backing for granted. Sponsors are hard to win, she says, and in Telkom she sees one that has, in her words, “gone out on a limb and sponsored a female sport,” a code outside the country’s most-followed three.
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This year’s TNL also opened a door she noticed at once, a place for an online broadcaster and a fresh face. The chance “to also be able to grow in the space and create another opportunity for women in sport,” she says, was the part that stood out.
Earlier in 2026 she anchored the English sports news at Soweto TV and produced its lifestyle show, an experience that taught her exactly where her gifts lie. “I am currently not a producer,” she says, grateful she tried it all the same. The anchor chair sharpened other tools, from the earpiece to the stilling of a naturally animated presence. A year as a production assistant at Backsports gave her the instinct to adapt when a broadcast goes wrong.
“If things go wrong, I’m able to adapt very quickly!”
One moment that told her she belonged was the FIFA World Cup 26 draw, which she covered as part of the Castle Lager activation, among football legends and big-name journalists. “It was like: I’m in the space, I’m doing the thing, I’m actually here,” she says. “That was something that was incredibly comforting, to know that I’ve made my space.”
She names Robert Marawa and Motshidisi Mohono, the broadcaster she calls the Queen of Rugby, as the figures who shaped her, citing Mohono’s poise and Marawa’s calm under pressure.
The best advice she carries is simpler than any technique. “Definitely be yourself, always,” she says. Audiences, she has learned, buy character before polish. “People are buying into your character. So how do you tell your story?”
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Ask her for a proudest moment and she does not reach for a trophy. She is proudest of the times it got hard. “Nobody talks about the flip side of how difficult it is to chase your dreams,” she says, describing a point that felt like the end of the road. That she pushed past it and kept going is the achievement she holds onto. “Even when the going got tough, I still persevered.”
Her sights are set on the SA20, whose short-format energy she loves, and on the main SuperSport stage, with a promise to tell honest stories along the way.
For the young South African girl who dreams of the screen but cannot yet see herself on it, she offers the clearest line of all.
“If you’re doing it for the right reasons, you will always get where you want to go!”
“If you genuinely believe that you have a passion for this… then a hundred percent follow that instinct all the way.” From a player who lost one game and found her voice in another, it sounds less like advice than a map of the road she has already walked.
Main Photo Caption: Olwethu-Andiswa Zondo has built a fast-rising career across live commentary, studio presenting and field journalism with SuperSport Schools, championing the next generation of young South African talent in sport. All Photos: Supplied
Photo 2 Caption: Zondo came up as a water polo player and swimmer before redirecting her energy towards a career behind the microphone.
Photo 3 Caption: Zondo anchored the English sports news at Soweto TV, sharpening the discipline and tonality the anchor chair demands.
Photo 4 Caption: The rising talent hosts magazine shows and reports from the studio and the field across SuperSport Schools. Photo: Charmaine Botes Visser
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