The Sunday Mail
Grace Chirumanzu – Sports Correspondent
Wendy Louise Hanssen is 48 but looks 20 years younger.
Hanssen, a former gymnast and kick boxer, is the reigning Ms Zimbabwe but her tales make one conclude that her soul is much stronger that the body voted to be the best among women in Zimbabwe.
She is a strong woman in every aspect of its meaning.
Hanssen is a mother of five children, two of them physically challenged teenagers. Despite all that she still finds time to train, compete and win.
How does she balance it all?
“You dye your hair pink, get multiple piercings and multiple tattoos. Then everyone thinks you are slightly mad then it’s okay because it doesn’t add harm to how you behave because people think you are mad anyway. So then you have a full licence,” she says with a laugh.
“I think in all honesty you have to be flexible and be unemotional. My husband always says flexibility minus emotion equals success and if you think about it, it is true.
“I apply it to my training. I needed to realise that with two challenged children I needed to be flexible and know that I cannot train everyday. I have my schedule typed and I follow it. I keep a picture of what I want at the end of it, that is what drives me.”
She fell in love with body-building over 30 years ago when the gymnasium would only welcome women for gymnastics or aerobics.
Lifting weights was for men.
“The gyms were separated then, in terms of male and female. There was nothing in the females side in terms of weights, it was all cardio no treadmills, nothing! I asked myself, what am I suppose to do here?”
“I moved to the weights section and I was trained by Mike Tshuma who is better known as Big Mike and he was a wrestler, so I started doing ladies wrestling.
“I was introduced to body-building and I got addicted. Then came marriage life, children and I had nothing to do with it (body-building) for years.”
But during last year’s Easter holidays Hanssen decided to take control of her body and started training for the Ms Zimbabwe competition.
Weighing 60kg in a pink and black bikini, she graced the stage as the oldest female contestant and flexed her muscles to victory.
Her husband was a proud man as his wife wowed the audience.
“He was so flattered and he was like ‘that’s my wife!’ He looked at me like ‘I know how old she is and how many children she has, I know her journey, people think she is 20 years younger than she is and she is winning the title.”
“He came to me and said, ‘I couldn’t be more proud’,” she recalls.
Hanssen wants her life story to inspire others. “I want my kids and everyone to learn never to be afraid to try something, if you believe you can do something, then try it.”
