Ruan Murray was taken by surprise when he found out he smashed the Varsity Athletics Discus record in Stellenbosch after throwing a staggering 56.42m to help his team win the meet and share the overall series title with UP-Tuks.
The NWU-Pukke athlete was only one of two to throw over 50m on the night with other being UJ’s Dewald van Heerden, who is also a training partner of Murray.
“I didn’t even know that I had the record. I just found out after the meet so I was unaware, but it is a great achievement,” Murray told varsitysportssa.com.
“It feels good. We been working hard for two years now so it was good to win it.”
Murray said he did not experience any pressure while he was competing and was relaxed throughout with his main rival being someone he knows quite well.
“Van Heerden and I train together and we have the same coach so everybody knows each other quite well. We have been playing against each other for years now, since we were at school.
” We know each other and there is great relationship so there is no bad vibes. It is nice competing against each other,” he said.
The Masters student said the secret to his team’s success this year has been a more focussed approach come competition time, which was sometimes missing in the past.
“The main thing is that the athletes need to pitch up on the day. A lot of the times at the meets some of the athletes don’t perform as well, but at Stellenbosch everybody came and performed on the night and that is what made the difference.
“Everybody is really glad. Like I said before we worked hard for the last couple of years and the guys were so ecstatic,” said Murray.
With there being nothing to choose between NWU-Pukke and UP-Tuks, Murray said it was a bitter-sweet feeling not winning the overall series by themselves.
“You don’t really want to share it, but it is better than losing it,” he added.
