Two German Paralympic champions trained alongside budding disabled sport stars during a training camp hosted by Maties Parasport at Coetzenburg recently.

The training session was aimed at athletes who will participated in the Nedbank National Championships for physically disabled athletes in Bloemfontein from 18-23 March.

Field coach Karin le Roux, Paralympians Zanele Situ, Fanie van der Merwe and Anika Pretorius, as well as a number of other coaches and third-year Sport Science students spent the morning giving advice and pointers to the young track and field athletes.

Van der Merwe also gave a short motivational talk.

Le Roux had a surprise in store for the seated athletes. She had invited the German Paralympic seated throwers to join them in training.

The German athletes, who spent two and a half weeks in Stellenbosch, set up next to the youngsters and showed them how things are done.

They also posed for a photograph and had a quick chat with Situ, who has competed against them in the past.

Between Martina Willing and Marianne Buggenhagen, they've competed in 11 Paralympic Games and won more than 20 medals in the field events javelin, shot put and discus. Willing is the current world champion in the javelin item (F56) while Buggenhagen is the current world champion in the discus item (F55).

According to Willing, they had heard good things about Stellenbosch and a group of nine people – including coaches and physiotherapists – decided to come here to train.

"It was worth it. It is beautiful here, the facilities are great and the gymnasium is wonderful," she said.

Although they trained hard, there was also some time to go on excursions and they visited popular sites such as Table Mountain and Cape Point.

Le Roux said the young athletes were amazed about how the Germans train.

"I know they learnt a lot by watching them and hopefully they were inspired to become as good as they are," she added.​