Few athletes at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 will have faced as much adversity this year as South African sprint hurdler Marione Fourie.
The sudden death of her coach, Juan Strydom, in mid-March from a burst stomach ulcer at 59 was devastating. More misery for Fourie followed in June when the 23-year-old broke her collarbone in two places after crashing at the finish in Hengelo.
Strydom’s passing was a seismic blow. Fourie credits him for transforming her from a shy 14-second hurdler into a world-class 12.49 performer.
“He was definitely a father figure to me, and he said I was more like a daughter to him than anyone else,” she recalls.
She learned of his death the morning after her season opener in Pretoria. Strydom, himself a former hurdler, always attended her meets, so his absence at the ASA Grand Prix was unusual.
Fourie produced the best season opener of her career, winning in 12.77 – proof of the work they had put in together. Tragically, it was a moment they never celebrated.
“I sent him a message about my race, but I never got a response,” she says. “Juan’s wife later told me that, in his pain, he was very happy about my race.”
Two days later, Fourie and her training group at the University of Pretoria competed in his memory. Battling raw grief, she won in 12.81 and felt a mix of sadness, joy and pride as she crossed the line.
“It was very difficult for the group to compete that day but each of us ran and then prayed together,” she says. “Straight after every race, I’d run to the stands to chat to him, but he wasn’t there,” she adds, choking back tears.
Remarkably, Fourie maintained her form, claiming third place in the first two Diamond League meetings in Xiamen and Shanghai-Keqiao. But moments after setting a season’s best of 12.60 in Hengelo, she suffered her second setback of 2025.
Marione Fourie (right) at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (© Getty Images)
Raised in Vanderbijlpark, about an hour south of Johannesburg, Fourie’s greatest inspiration is her grandmother Anne-Marie, who raised her from the age of eight after her parents’ divorce. It was her grandmother who encouraged her into sport. Within six months of hurdling, Fourie won a national U11 silver medal and later represented South Africa in netball. Athletics, however, was always her priority.
At 13, after collecting several age-group medals, she promised her grandmother she would one day compete at the Olympics.
Encouraged by her fiancé Tristan Dean, a 100m and 200m sprinter, Fourie moved to the University of Pretoria to study sports science and came under Strydom’s guidance. At first she found him intimidating.
“He seemed very angry at first but when you get to know him, he was very soft. He could be a joker, and he loved his gelatos,” she says.
Strydom instilled independence in his athletes, encouraging them to embrace self-knowledge – lessons that built Fourie’s resilience.
In her first year with him, she cut a full second from her PB and reached the semifinals at the 2021 World U20 Championships in Nairobi. She broke 13 seconds in 2022, took African bronze behind world record-holder Tobi Amusan, and reached the World Championships semifinals in Oregon.
A quad tear hampered her 2023 campaign, though she still set a PB of 12.55 and reached another World Championships semifinal.
“That year made me understand the importance of looking after my body,” she says. “Now I have physio and massage twice a week and go into the oxygen chamber each week.”
In 2024 she won African silver in Cameroon, then lowered the national record to 12.49 in Hengelo. But, despite fulfilling the vow she made to her grandmother by earning selection for the Olympics, the Paris 2024 Games did not go according to plan.
Fourie had just two hours of restless sleep the day before her first-round heat, which she feels contributed to a below-par run of 12.91. Strydom then purchased several duvets to compensate for the poor-quality mattress on Fourie’s bed in the athletes’ village, and she duly had a much better sleep before the repechage round, winning her race in 12.79 to earn a place in the semifinal.
Buoyed by the performance, Fourie was then met by ill fortune in her semifinal when British athlete Cindy Sember lost balance and fell into Fourie’s lane. Forced to take evasive action, Fourie managed to avoid the same fate, but her race had been severely compromised and she finished sixth in 13.01, missing out on a spot in the final.
“I was disappointed, but I quickly told myself to focus on 2025 and that I am still young,” she says.
Now working with a temporary coach, she trains eight times a week – five track sessions and three in the gym. Without Strydom it has been tough, but she has adopted a new mindset.
“There are a lot of people who reflect negatively on me, who want me to sit in a corner and mope. I go into competitions with the approach that I am here to do something,” she says.
Her third-place finishes in Xiamen and Shanghai-Keqiao, both in 12.62, confirmed her place among the world’s best. The Hengelo accident slowed her season, but didn’t end it, and she is back on track for Tokyo.
“I couldn’t do anything for two weeks,” she says. “Then I started gym work with minimal impact on the collarbone, only lower-body exercises. Physio helped loosen the muscles around it, and gradually I returned to the track.”
Her belief in making the World Championships never wavered, and she marked her comeback with 12.83 at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia.
“Mentally I’m 100 percent and physically I’m getting back to where I was,” she says. “My goals are to run faster than before the accident and perform to the best of my ability.”
Whatever happens, Fourie has already delivered performances that would make her late coach proud.
“He would be very happy,” she says. “To prove him right is very motivating.”
Steve Landells for World Athletics