Marijke Nel (born 17 December 1967) is a South African-born Canadian

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

player and former women's international

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16� ...

from Richards Bay,

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...

, South Africa. She played rugby until 2006 when she moved to Canada to coach tennis. She is the granddaughter of the former

South Africa national rugby union team The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly known as the Springboks (colloquially the Boks, Bokke or Amabhokobhoko) is the country's national team governed by the South African Rugby Union. The Springboks play in green and gold jersey ...

captain, Philip J. Nel.

Rugby

After time at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

in the United States, Nel started playing rugby for

Wasps Ladies Wasps Women are a women's rugby union based in Acton, London, England. They were founded in 1984 and play in the Premier 15s. They are the women's team of Wasps FC, who are affiliated to Premiership Rugby team Wasps. They play their home matches ...

in England as a fly-half. She then moved back to South Africa to play for

Blue Bulls The Blue Bulls (), known for sponsorship reasons as the Vodacom Blue Bulls, is a South African rugby union team that participates in the annual Currie Cup tournament and the United Rugby Championship. They are governed by their second team t ...

when competitive women's rugby started in South Africa. She made her international debut for the South Africa women's national rugby union team in 2005 during a tour to England. When South Africa travelled to Canada to take part in the 2006 Women's Rugby World Cup, Nel liked Canada so much she decided to settle there.

Tennis

Nel started her time in Canada as a tennis coach in Bayers Lake, Nova Scotia before becoming the technical director for Tennis Nova Scotia. She continued to play tennis and in 2016 won the doubles at the Senior National Championships. This would have meant that she was eligible to represent Canada at the 2017 ITF Young Seniors World Championships; however she was not a Canadian citizen. Following a request to her local Member of Parliament to fast track her citizenship application, her

Canadian citizenship Canadian nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Canada. The primary law governing these regulations is the Citizenship Act, which came into force on February 15, 1977 and is applicable to all provinces and ...

was granted in time to allow Nel to compete at the tournament in South Africa. During the tournament, she lost both her women's and mixed doubles matches as well as her singles tournament match in the first round however she did reach the final of the consolation bracket.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nel, Marijke 1967 births Living people Rugby union players from KwaZulu-Natal South African female rugby union players White South African people South African expatriates in Canada Canadian female tennis players Wasps RFC players Blue Bulls players Rugby union fly-halves Kansas State University alumni South Africa women's international rugby union players Canadian expatriate rugby union players in England South African expatriate rugby union players in England 20th-century Canadian sportswomen