About Louzanne

Louzanne Coetzee is a blind athlete from Bloemfontein, South Africa. Her running career started in 2012 at the University of the Free State, her alma mater, and the place she still calls home.
Her competitive career was initiated at an athletics event for her group of first year students, and 9 years later she found herself on the world’s biggest sporting stage holding not one, but two, paralympic medals.

She identifies as a long-distance runner, competing in any track and road event, all the way from an 800m to the marathon. During the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics she won a silver medal in the 1500m, T11 classification for totally blind athletes, and bagged a bronze medal in the T12 marathon.

Louzanne competes with two guides, Claus Kempen on her road events and Estean Badenhorst on her track events.

She is the house mother of one of the prestigious ladies’ hostels at the University of the Free State, where she mentors and acts as guardian over all her promising students. Louzanne has a guide dog named Isabel and is actively involved with student life and disability sport at the university.

TOKYO, JAPAN – AUGUST 29: Louzanne Coetzee of South Africa and her guide, Erasmus Badenhorst, in the heats of the women’s 1500m T11 during the morning session of athletics on Day 5 of the Tokyo2020 Paralympic Games at the Olympic Stadium on August 29, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Roger Sedres for Team South Africa)